[HE  STORY  OF 
THE  INVENTION 
AND  MANUFACTURE 


FEEL  PENS 


O 
C\J 


WSON.BLAKEMAN  5k  CCt 
NEV  YORK -CHICAGO 


CM 

03 


LI  BR  ARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Received 
Accessions  No. 


. 


THE  STORY 

OF    THE    INVENTION 

OF   STEEL    PENS 


WITH    A    DESCRIPTION   OF 

THE    MANUFACTURING    PROCESSES   BY 
WHICH  THEY  ARE    PRODUCED 


BY    HENRY    BORE 


NEW  YORK 
IVISON,  BLAKEMAN    &   COMPANY 

NOS.  753-755    BROADWAY 
1890 


THE  STORY  OF  THE 
INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS 


[N  these  days  of  Public  Schools  and  extended  fa- 
cilities for  popular  education  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  many  people  unaccustomed  to  the  use  of 
steel  pens,  but  although  the  manufacture  of  this 
article  by  presses  and  tools  must  have  been  introduced 
during  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century,  the  in- 
quirer after  knowledge  would  scarcely  find  a  dozen  per- 
sons who  could  give  any  definite  information  as  to  when, 
where,  and  by  whom  this  invention  was  made.  Less 
than  two  decades  ago  there  were  three  men  living  who 
could  have  answered  this  question,  but  two  of  them 
passed  away  without  making  any  sign,  and  the  third  — 
Sir  Josiah  Mason  —  has  left  on  record  that  his  friend 
and  patron  —  Mr.  Samuel  Harrison  —  about  the  year 
1780,  made  a  steel  pen  for  Dr.  Priestley. 

This  interesting  fact  does  not  contribute  anything  to- 
ward solving  the  question,  Who  was  the  first  manu- 
facturer of  steel  pens  by  mechanical  appliances  ?  In  the 
absence  of  any  definite  information,  the  balance  of  testi- 
mony tends  to  prove  that  steel  pens  were  first  made  by 
tools,  worked  by  a  screw  press,  about  the  beginning  of 
the  third  decade  of  the  present  century,  and  the  names 
associated  with  their  manufacture  were  John  Mitchell, 


THE  STOR  Y  OF  THE 


Joseph  Gillott,  and  Josiah  Mason,  each,  in  his  own  way, 
doing  something  toward  perfecting  the  manufacture  by 
mechanical  means. 

The  earliest  references  to  pens  are  probably  those  in 
the  Bible,  and  are  to  be  found  in  Judges  v.  14,  ist  Kings 
xxi.  8,  Job  xix.  24,  Psalm  xlv.  i,  Isaiah  viii.  i,  Jeremiah 
viii.  8  and  xvii.  i.  But  these  chiefly  refer  to  the  iron 
stylus,  though  the  first  in  Jeremiah  —  taken  in  reference 
to  the  mention  of  a  penknife,  xxxvi.  23 — would  seem  to 
imply  that  a  reed  was  in  use  at  that  period. 

There  is  a  reference  to  "  pen  and  ink "  in  the  3d 
Epistle  of  John  xiii.  5,  which  was  written  about  A.  D.  85, 
and  as  pens  made  in  brass  and  silver  were  used  in  the 
Greek  and  Roman  Empires  at  that  time,  it  is  probable 
that  a  metallic  pen  or  reed  was  alluded  to. 

Pens  and  reeds  made  in  the  precious  metals  and 
bronze  appear  to  have  been  in  use  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  present  era.  The  following  are  a  few  not- 
able instances  : 

' '  The  Queen  of  Hungary,  in  the  year  1 540,  had  a  silver  pen  be- 
stowed upon  her,  which  had  this  inscription  upon  it :  'Publii  Ovidii 
Calamus,'  found  under  the  ruins  of  some  monument  in  that  country, 
as  Mr.  Sands,  in  the  Life  of  Ovid  (prefixed  to  his  Metamorphosis) 
relates." — Humane  Industry ;  or,  a  History  of  Mechanical  Arts,  by 
Thos.  Powell,  D.D,:  London,  1661,  page  61. 

This  was  probably  a  silver  reed,  and,  from  the  locality 
in  which  it  was  found,  was  once  the  property  of  the  poet 
Ovid.  Publius  Ovidius  Naso  was  born  in  the  year  43  B.  C., 
and  died  18  A.  D.  He  was  exiled  at  the  age  of  30  to  Tomi, 
a  town  south  of  the  delta  of  the  Danube.  This  at  present 
is  in  modern  Bulgaria,  but  at  the  period  mentioned  was 
in  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Hungary. 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL   PENS. 


From  "  Notes  and  Queries,"  in  Birmingham  Weekly 
Post,  we  take  the  following : 

"EARLY  METALLIC  PENS. —  Metallic  pens  are  generally  supposed 
to  have  been  unknown  before  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  when 
gold  and  silver  pens  are  occasionally  referred  to  as  novel  luxuries.  I 
have,  however,  recently  found  a  description  and  an  engraving  of  one 
found  in  excavating  Pompeii,  and  which  is  now  preserved  in  the  Mu- 
seum at  Naples.  It  is  described  in  the  quarto  volume  '  Les  Monu- 
ments du  Musee  National  de  Naples,  graves  sur  cuivre  par  les  meillures 
artistes  Italienes.  Texte  par  Domenico  Monaco,  Conservateur  du 
meme  Musee,  Naples,  1882,'  and  is  in  the  Catalogue  : 

"  '  Plate  126  (v)  Plume  en  bronze,  taillee  parfaitement  a  la  fa£on  de 
nos  plumes  0.13  cent. 

"  '  Plate  126  (y)  Plume  en  roseau  [reed]  trouvee  pres  d'un  papyrus  a 
Herculaneum.' 

"  The  former  (v)  is  engraved  to  look  like  an  ordinary  reed  pen,  as 
now  used  universally  in  the  East ;  and  the  other  (y)  has  a  spear  shape, 
or  almond  shape  (like  many  modern  metallic  pens),  but  with  a  sort  of 
fillet  or  ring  on  the  stem,  which  indicates  that  the  '  y '  example  is  not  a 
'reed,'  but  a  metallic  stylus,  or  pen,  while  the  'v'  example  is  shown 
clearly  as  a  '  reed.'  The  two  are,  however,  certainly  older  than  A.  D. 
79,  when  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum  were  buried  by  the  eruption  of 
Vesuvius." 

According  to  Father  Montfaucon,  the  patriarchs  of 
Constantinople,  under  the  Greek  Empire,  were  accus- 
tomed to  sign  their  allocutions  with  tubular  pens  of 
silver,  similar  in  shape  to  the  reed  pens  which  are  still 
used  by  Oriental  nations. 

The  following  are  translated  from  the  French  "  Notes 
and  Queries  " — L?  Inter  medlar e : 

"A  METALLIC  PEN  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY. —  M.  Reni  de 
Bellwal,  in  a  very  learned  volume  which  he  has  published  recently,  on 
the  first  campaign  of  Edward  III.  in  France,  says  (p.  95)  with  respect 
to  the  fictitious  pieces  (documents)  fabricated  by  Robert  d'Artois,  that  a 
clerk  of  Jeanne  wrote  the  deeds,  and  made  use  of  a  bronze  pen  to  enable 


THE   STORY  OF  THE 


him  the  better  to  disguise  his  writing.  This  plainly  refers  to  a  pen, 
and  not  to  a  stylus.  Is  there  any  record  of  the  use  of  metallic  pens  at 
any  period  anterior  to  the  fourteenth  century  ?  It  is  very  satisfactory, 
however,  to  establish  (as  the  French  used  to  say)  lles preuves  de  jjoo.'" 
— L?  Intermediare. 

"  In  the  Vieux-Neuf  of  M.  Ed.  Fournier  (vol.  ii.,  p.  22,  note)  there 
is  mentioned — according  to  the  documents  used  in  the  prosecution  of 
Robert  d' Artois,  which  are  in  the  Archives  — '  the  bronze  pen '  with 
which  the  forgers  in  the  pay  of  the  count  wrote  the  false  papers  which 
he  required.  M.  Fournier  also  quotes  from  '  Montfaucon  '  '  the  silver 
reeds'  with  which  the  Constantinople  patriarchs  used  to  write  their 
letters." — CUTHBERT,  L '  Intermddiare ',  ist  June,  1864. 

"  METALLIC  PENS  (XV.,  68). — Writing  was  done  in  the  Middle 
Ages  sometimes  with  a  metal  stylus,  or  perhaps  with  a  metal  pen  ;  with 
the  former  on  wax,  and  with  the  pen  on  parchment  or  vellum.  '  At  Trin- 
ity College,  Cambridge,  is  a  manuscript  illustration  of  Eadwine,  a  monk 
of  Canterbury,  and  at  the  end  the  writer  is  represented  with  a  metal  pen 
in  his  hand.'  (See  Bibliomania  in  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  103).  I  have 
in  my  possession  a  metal  pen  of  Dutch  manufacture,  dating  certainly 
from  the  year  1717,  mounted  on  the  same  pencilholder,  with  a  piece  of 
solid  plumbago,  in  a  memorandum  book  of  the  same  year." — SAM: 
TIMMINS. 

"  Mr.  Le  Chauvine  Gal,  Prior  of  the  collegiate  of  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Bars  at  Aosta,  had  in  his  collection  of  Roman  antiquities  a  bronze  pen, 
slit,  found  in  a  tomb,  among  a  number  of  lamps  and  lachrymatory 
vases.  M.  Aubert  has  given  a  drawing  and  description  of  it  in  a  work 
on  Aosta.  It  was  subsequently  stolen  from  him  by  a  collector." — 
CHAMBERY,  Un  Savoyard,  L'lnternittdiare ;  25th  May,  1868. 

"  METALLIC  PENS. — In  a  precious  volume  (an  account  of  the  books 
of  the  Decretalia)  preserved  in  the  library  of  Saint  Antoine,  of  Padua,  the 
following  notice  is  to  be  found  at  the  bottom  of  the  last  page  :  '  This 
work  is  fashioned  and  by  diligence  finished  for  the  service  of  God,  not 
with  ink  of  quill  nor  with  brazen  reed,  but  with  a  certain  invention  of 
printing  or  reproducing  by  John  Fust,  citizen  of  Mayence,  and  Peter 
Schoeiffer,  of  Gernsheim,  Dec.  I7th,  1465,  A.  D.'  Here,  then,  we 
have  a  document  proving  the  existence  of  metallic  pens  in  the  Middle 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS, 


Ages.  But  has  any  such  pen  come  down  to  us  ?  If  so,  could  a  de- 
tailed description  of  it  be  obtained  ?  On  the  other  hand,  I  am  curious 
to  know  if  it  is  possible  that  platinum  was  used  in  the  eighteenth  cent- 
ury in  the  manufacture  of  pens,  or  whether  it  is  necessary  to  attribute 
a  peculiar  meaning  to  the  '  platinum  pen '  in  the  following  passage  of 
the  system  of  shorthand  by  Bertin  (edit,  of  the  year  iv.,  p.  93)  (1793). 
'  Those  of  steel  and  platinum  are  most  convenient  ;  these  latter  have 
the  advantage  of  all  others,  in  that  they  hold  the  ink  a  long  time,  and 
run  over  the  paper  easily,  and  are  not  liable  to  corrosion  by  any  simple 
acid.'  I  am  ignorant  of  what  the  same  author  means  when  he  men- 
tions the  endless  pen,  which  '  would  certainly  be  the  best.'  " — J.  CAMUS, 
L' Interm^diare . 

' '  Metallic  pens  were  used  before  the  fifteenth  century  ;  they  were  in 
use  at  the  court  of  Augustus."  See  L'Intermed.  (I.  69,  94,  141  ;  II. 
319.)  Consult  also  Le  Vieux-Neuf  Ed.  Fournier. — A.  D. 

The  following  extracts  show  there  have  been  several 
claimants,  on  the  Continent,  who  profess  to  have  invented 
metallic  pens,  made  from  steel,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  ;  but  the  reader  had  better  suspend 
his  judgment  until  he  has  read  the  notes  that  follow 
them  : 

"A  manuscript,  entitled  'Historical  Chronicle  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
second  book,  1748,'  places  on  record  the  claims  of  Johann  Janssen,  a 
magistrate  of  that  place,  as  the  inventor  of  steel  pens.  '  Just  at  the 
meeting  of  the  congress  [after  the  Austrian  war]  I  may  without  boast- 
ing, claim  the  honour  of  having  invented  a  new  pen.  It  is,  perhaps, 
not  an  accident  that  God  should  have  inspired  me  at  the  present  time 
with  the  idea  of  making  steel  pens,  for  all  the  envoys  here  assembled 
have  bought  the  first  that  have  been  made  ;  therewith,  as  may  be  hoped, 
to  sign  a  treaty  of  peace,  which,  with  God's  blessing,  shall  be  as  per- 
manent as  the  hard  steel  with  which  it  is  written.  Of  these  pens,  as  I 
have  invented  them,  no  man  hath  before  seen  or  heard.  If  kept  clean 
and  free  from  rust  and  ink,  they  will  continue  fit  for  use  for  many 
years.  Indeed,  a  man  may  write  twenty  reams  of  paper  with  one,  and 
the  last  line  would  be  written  as  well  as  the  first.  They  are  now  sent 


THE   STORY  OF  THE 


into  every  corner  of  the  world  as  a  rare  thing — to  Spain,  France,  Eng- 
land and  Holland.  Others  will  no  doubt  make  imitations  of  my  pens, 
but  I  am  the  man  who  first  invented  and  made  them.  I  have  sold  a 
great  number  of  them  at  home  and  abroad  at  is.  each,  and  I  dispose 
of  them  as  quickly  as  I  can  make  them. ' " 

In  an  article  on  Writing  Instruments,  which  appeared 
in  the  Berlin  Paper  Zeitung,  on  the  ipth  of  May,  1887, 
the  author  says  : 

"A  school  teacher  of  Koningberg,  named  Burger,  in  the  year  1808, 
made  pens  from  metal,  but  he  got  poor  by  his  trials.  After  this  time, 
and  probably  imitating  the  pens  of  Burger,  the  English  began  to  take 
in  hand  the  manufacture  of  pens  ;  especially  Perry,  he  having  perfected 
the  pens,  as  he  did  not  restrict  himself  to  the  simple  straight  slit,  but  he 
made  cuts  in  the  sides  of  different  kinds." 

In  a  pamphlet  upon  the  manufacture  of  steel  pens, 
published  in  Paris,  in  1884,  the  writer  says  : 

' '  The  invention  of  the  metallic  pen  is  due  to  a  French  mechanic  — 
Arnoux — who  lived  in  the  eighteenth  century,  who  made  as  far  back  as 
1750  a  number  of  metallic  pens  as  a  curiosity.  This  invention  did  not 
have  any  immediate  result  in  France  but  spread  to  England,  and  be- 
came in  Birmingham,  about  1830,  a  very  prosperous  industry.  A  very 
curious  fact  about  this  trade  is  that,  in  England,  it  does  not  exist  out 
of  Birmingham,  where  there  are  about  ten  manufactories.  In  France  it 
has  become  localized  in  Boulogne." 

There  is  also  the  "  nameless  Sheffield  Artisan,"  who  so 
frequently  figures  in  newspaper  paragraphs  as  the  in- 
ventor of  steel  pens  ;  and  William  Gadsby,  a  mathemat- 
ical instrument  maker,  who  for  his  own  use  constructed 
a  clumsy  article  from  the  mainspring  of  a  watch  ;  but 
it  is  not  till  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century 
that  we  get  anything  authentic  respecting  the  making 
of  metallic  pens.  "  Este,"  writing  in  "  Local  Notes 
and  Queries "  (Birmingham  Weekly  Post)  mentions  a 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL   PENS. 


remarkable  little  volume  supplied  to  the  members  of  the 
States  General  of  Holland,  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  W. 
Bragge,  of  Sheffield,  dated  1717.  It  contained  a  silver 
pencil  case,  in  two  parts,  one  holding  a  piece  of  plum- 
bago, mounted  like  a  crayon,  and  the  othera  metallic  pen. 
We  have  seen  this  unique  book  (now  the  property  of 
Mr.  Sam  :  Timmins).  The  pen  is  of  the  barrel  shape, 
apparently  silver,  and  it  must  be  regarded  as  the  earliest 
authentic  metallic  pen.  Of  the  date  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  as  the  pen  is  made  to  pass  through  loops  in  the 
cover  of  the  volume  to  keep  it  closed,  after  the  manner 
of  pocket  books,  and  the  book  bears  the  date,  printed  on 
the  title  page,  1717. 

Pope,  about  the  same  time,  received  from  Lady  Frances 
Shirley  a  present  of  a  standish,  containing  a  STEEL  and  a 
gold  pen.  In  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  this  present, 
the  poet  wrote  an  ode,  in  which  the  following  lines 
occur : 

"  Take  at  this  hand  celestial  arms  ; 
Secure  the  radiant  weapons  wield  ; 

This  golden  lance  shall  guard  desert, 
And,  if  a  vice  dares  keep  the  field, 

This  steel  shall  stab  it  to  the  heart. 
Awed,  on  my  bended  knees  I  fell, 

Received  the  weapons  of  the  sky, 
And  dipped  them  in  the  sable  well  — 

The  fount  of  fame  or  infamy. 
What  well  ?     What  weapon  ?     Flavia  cries, 

A  standish,  steel  and  golden  pen  ! 
It  came  from  Bertrand 's,*  not  the  skies, 
I  gave  it  you  to  write  again." 

*  Bertrand  kept  a  fancy  shop  in  Bath.  He  died  in  1755.  His  wife  is  men- 
tioned by  Horace  Walpole,  in  his  letter  to  George  Montague,  May  i8th,  1749, 
which  letter  is  printed  in  his  Correspondence. 


THE   STORY  OF  THE 

In  No.  503  of  the  Spectator,  bearing  the  date  of  Octo- 
ber 7,  1712,  Steele,  mentioning  the  conspicuous  manner 
in  which  a  certain  lady  conducted  herself  in  church,  says  : 

' '  For  she  fixed  her  eyes  upon  the  preacher,  and  as  he  said  anything 
she  approved,  with  one  of  Charles  Mather's  fine  tablets,  she  set  down 
the  sentence,  at  once  showing  her  fine  hand,  the  gold  pen,  her  readiness 
in  writing,  and  her  judgments  in  choosing  what  to  write." 

Edmund  Waller,  about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  a  silver  pen  from  a 
lady,  in  the  following  verses  : 

"  Madam  !  intending  to  have  try'd, 

The  silver  favour  which  you  gave, 
In  ink  the  shining  point  I  dy'd, 

And  drench'd  it  in  the  sable  wave  ; 
When,  grieved  to  be  so  foully  stained, 

On  you  it  thus  to  me  complain'd. 

"So  I,  the  wronged  pen  to  please, 
Made  it  my  humble  thanks  express 

Unto  your  Ladyship,  in  these, 
And  now  'tis  forced  to  confess 

That  your  great  self  did  ne'er  indite 
Nor  that  to  me  more  noble  write." 

Mr.  G.  A.  Lomas,  writing  to  the  Scientific  American, 
November  23,  1878,  says  : 

"  I  write  to  inquire  if  you  can  give  me  information  concerning  the 
manufacture  of  metal  pens  in  this  country.  I  may  be  vain  in  the  sup- 
position, but  I  am  persuaded  that  my  people  —  the  Shakers  —  were  the 
originators  of  metal  pens.  I  write  this  to  you  with  a  silver  pen,  one 
slit,  that  wras  made  in  the  year  1819,  at  this  village,  by  the  Shakers. 
Two  or  three  years  previously  to  the  use  of  silver  pens,  our  people  used 
brass  plates  for  their  manufacture,  but  soon  found  silver  preferable. 
Some  people  sold  these  pens  in  the  year  1819,  at  this  village,  for  twenty- 
five  cents,  and  disposed  of  all  that  could  be  made." 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  n 

^^_____ • 

The  writer  further  says  the  metal  was  made  from  sil- 
ver coins. 

This  communication  called  forth  the  following  from 
another  correspondent : 

"  The  letter  in  the  Scientific  American,  November  23,  1878,  with 
regard  to  the  early  manufacture  of  steel  pens,  reminds  me  of  the  fol- 
lowing note  which  appeared  in  the  Boston  Mechanic,  for  August,  1835. 
'  The  inventor  of  steel  pens,'  says  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  '  was  an 
American  and  a  well-known  resident  of  our  city  (New  York),  Mr.  Pere- 
grine Williamson.  In  the  year  1800,  Mr.  W.,  then  a  working  jeweler,  at 
Baltimore,  while  attending  an  evening  school,  finding  some  difficulty  in 
making  a  quill  pen  to  suit  him,  made  one  of  steel.  It  would  not  write 
well,  however,  for  want  of  flexibility.  After  a  while  he  made  an  addi- 
tional slit  on  each  side  of  the  main  one,  and  the  pens  were  so  much 
improved  that  Mr.  W.  was  called  to  make  them  in  such  numbers  as  to 
eventually  occupy  his  whole  time,  and  that  of  a  journeyman.  At  first 
the  business  was  very  profitable  and  enabled  Mr.  W.  to  realize  for  the 
labor  of  himself  and  journeyman  a  clear  profit  of  six  hundred  dollars 
per  month.  The  English  soon  borrowed  the  invention,  and  some  who 
first  engaged  in  the  business  realized  immense  fortunes.' " 

We  do  not  kno.w  how  much  reliance  may  be  placed 
upon  this  statement,  but,  if  the  last  assertion  "that  those 
who  first  engaged  in  the  business  realized  immense  fort- 
unes "  may  be  taken  as  a  test,  the  whole  must  be  re- 
ceived with  a  grain  of  salt.  The  letter  appeared  in  the 
Boston  Mechanic,  in  1835,  and  at  that  date  there  were 
penmakers  who  had  made  a  modest  competence,  but  in 
no  case  were  they  possessed  of  immense  fortunes. 

In  London  Notes  and  Queries,  the  following  appears 
respecting  early  steel  pens  : 

"  THE  FIRST  STEEL  PEN. — (sth  S.,  iii.,  395.)  Ten  years  before  Dr. 
Priestley  was  born  steel  pens  were  in  use.  There  are  references  to  them 
in  the  Diary  of  John  Byrom,  who  required  them  when  writing  short- 
hand. In  a  letter  to  his  sister  Phoebe,  dated  August,  1723,  he 


12  THE   STORY  OF  THE 

mentions  them  as  follows :  '  Alas  !  alas  !  I  cannot  meet  with  a  steel 
pen,  no  manner  of  where  I  believe  I  have  asked  at  375  places,  but 
that  which  I  have  is  at  your  service,  as  the  owner  himself  always  is.'  " 
(Remains,  vol.  i.,  39.) 

Mr.  Ralph  N.  James,  writing  to  Notes  and  Queries, 
gives  the  following  extract  from  the  very  amusing  "Jour- 
ney to  Paris,"  by  Dr.  Martin  Lister,  1698 : 

"  There  was  one  thing  very  curious,  and  that  was  a  Writing  Instru- 
ment of  thick  and  strong  silver  wire,  bound  up  like  a  hollow  button  or 
screw,  with  both  ends  pointing  one  way,  and  at  a  distance,  so  that  a 
man  might  easily  put  his  forefinger  betwixt  the  two  points,  and  the 
point  divided  in  two,  just  like  our  steel  pens" — London  Notes  and 
Queries,  vol.  iii.,  page  346. 

This  note  caused  another  writer,  Mr.  C.  A.  Ward,  to 
send  the  following  : 

"STEEL  PENS. — The  extract  given  from  Dr.  M.  Lister's,  by  Mr. 
Ralph  N.  James,  is  very  interesting.  The  doctor  there  speaks  of  '  our 
steel  pens?  as  if  they  were  not  at  all  uncommon.  When  the  poet 
Churchill's  effects  were  sold  up,  after  his  death,  Nov.  10,  1764,  they 
fetched  extravagant  prices  ;  '  a  common  steel  pen  '  brought  £5." — Lon- 
don Notes  and  Queries,  vol  iii.,  page  474. 

The  following  extract  from  London  Notes  and  Queries 
gives  very  plausible  reasons  against  placing  confidence 
in  the  preceding  and  other  notices  of  ancient  steel  pens  : 

"  STEEL  PENS,  (sth  S.,  vol.  iii. ,  pp.  346,  474.)  May  I  ask  whether,  in 
giving  the  interesting  references  to  the  use  of  steel  pens  before  the  time 
of  Priestley  (one  reference  even  going  so  far  back  as  the  seventeenth 
century)  your  correspondents  have  carefully  considered  what  is  meant  by 
the  terms.  For  my  own  part  (of  course  I  may  be  quite  wrong)  I  should 
naturally  have  anticipated  steel  pens  in  these  references  to  mean  not  the 
modern  steel  nib  for  ordinary  penmanship,  but  the  ancient  steel  pen 
for  drawing  lines  or  ruling  circles,  such  as  is  contained  in  every  box  of 
mathematical  instruments.  This  would  explain  (to  some  extent)  the 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL   PENS.  13 

great  price  fetched  for  a  good  one  of  Churchill's  ;  a  mere  old  steel  nib 
would  scarcely  enter  into  a  sale  at  all.  It  would  explain,  too,  why  a 
special  process  of  hardening  should  be  applied  to  a  quill,  in  order  to 
make  it  do  duty  for  the  steel  instrument.  One  would  scarcely  think  of 
hardening  a  quill  in  order  to  enable  it  to  compete  with  a  steel  nib  in 
some  of  the  least  desirable  qualities,  though  one  often  wishes  one 
could  accomplish  the  reverse  process,  and  soften  or  supple  a  steel 
1  stick  frog,'  so  as  to  give  it  the  elasticity  of  the  grey  goose  quill." — 
V.  H.  I.  L.  L.  C.  IV.  (iv.,  37,  5th  S.,  London  Notes  and  Queries.} 

Mr.  R.  Prosser,  author  of  "  Birmingham  Inventors  and 
Inventions,"  in  writing  to  the  compiler  of  this  work,  says  : 

"  It  has  often  occurred  to  me  that  some  of  the  very  early  references 
to  metallic  pens  may  perhaps  mean  the  draughtsman's  '  ruling  pen,'  and 
not  an  instrument  made  after  the  fashion  of  a  quill  pen  with  a  slit  in 
it.  That  it  is  possible  to  write  with  such  an  instrument  this  paragraph 
will  show,  but  I  must  admit  that  it  is  not  equal  to  one  of  Perry's  J's." 

From  an  entry  in  "  Pepy's  Diary,"  October  24,  1660, 
drawing  pens  appear  to  have  been  in  use  in  London,  at 
the  time  of  the  Restoration  : 

"To  Mr.  Lilly's,  where,  not  finding  Mr.  Spong,  I  went  to  Mr. 
Greatorex,  where  I  met  him,  and  where  I  bought  a  draining  pen" 

In  London  Notes  and  Queries  (4th  S.,  xi.,  440),  the 
Rev.  E.  Smedley,  editor  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Metropoli- 
tana,  writing  to  his  friend,  Mr.  H.  Hawkins,  April  10, 
1833,  says: 

"  The  process  of  nibbing  and  shaving  is  one  which  I  always  abomi- 
nated, and  for  years  past  I  have  taken  refuge  under  the  Perryian  pens. 
The  one  with  which  I  now  write  has  been  in  use  daily,  and  all  day 
long,  for  more  than  a  fortnight,  and  I  consider  that  it  still  owes  me 
quite  as  much  worth  as  it  has  already  furnished.  Every  packet  con- 
tains nine  pens,  and  on  an  average  two  out  of  that  number  fail  to  suit 
my  hand,  but  the  remaining  seven  are  faithful  servants,  and  their  price 
is  2s." 


14  THE  STORY  OF  THE 

In  London  Notes  and  Queries  (4th  S.,  xii ,  57)  a  writer 
says  : 

"  I  bought  my  first  steel  pen  from  Bramah,  Piccadilly,  in  1825.  The 
price  was  is.  6d.  It  was  very  thick  and  hard,  with  very  little  elasticity. 
In  1829  I  read  advertised  in  the  Times,  steel  pens,  with  holder,  33. 
per  dozen,  at  Kendal's,  in  Holborn.  They  were  hand  made,  and 
much  easier  to  write  with  than  Bramah's.  Soon  after  the  price  fell, 
and  steel  pens  became  common." 

In  London  Notes  and  Queries  (4th  S.,  x.,  309),  October 
19,  1872,  Mr.  William  Bates,  speaking  of  a  visit  he  paid  to 
an  old  lady,  at  Studley  (Worcestershire)  about  1825,  says 
that  he  saw  an  exquisitely-finished  inkstand  of  pure  gold, 
the  gift  of  one  of  the  Earls  of  Plymouth  to  her  father, 
100  years  before.  The  inkstand  was  provided  with  a 
jointed  gold  penholder,  terminating  in  a  barrel  (one  slit) 
pen,  resembling  the  metallic  pen  of  the  present  day,  ex- 
cept that  he  found  that  it  would  not  write. 

In  "  Local  Notes  and  Queries,"  published  in  the  Bir- 
mingham Journal  and  Weekly  Post,  there  have  appeared 
a  number  of  contributions  relating  to  the  early  manufact- 
ure of  steel  pens.  We  reproduce  them  here.  A  corre- 
spondent writing  on  June  22,  1869,  says:  "Daniel  Fel- 
lows, of  Sedgley,  made  steel  pens  about  1800." 

Another  writer,  on  the  same  date,  says,  "The  first 
makers  of  steel  pens  were  John  Edwards,  Hill  Street, 
and  Francis  Heeley,  Mount  Street,  Birmingham." 

Respecting  the  former  of  these,  in  Wrightsons  Bir- 
mingham Directory,  1823,  the  following  advertisement 
appears  :  "  John  Edwards,  manufacturer  of  improved 
gold,  silver,  and  elastic  steel  pens,  mounted  in  all  kinds  of 
cases,  and  desk  handles,  No.  40  Hill  Street.  N.  B. — The 
pens  are  warranted  to  write  exceedingly  fine  and  free." 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  15 

This    advertisement    contained    engravings  of    a   barrel 
and  "  nibbed  "  or  "  slip  "  pen. 

J.  Sargent,  writing  from  Tettenhall,  June  28,  1869, 
says : 

"  A  journeyman  blacksmith,  named  Fellows,  of  Sedgley,  was  the  first 
originator  of  steel  pens.  I  resided  at  Sedgley  in  1822,  when  Sheldon, 
Fellows's  apprentice,  made  some  of  these  pens.  He  made  two  for  me. 
I  wrote  very  well  with  them.  Sheldon  himself  told  me  that  Mr. 
Gillott  commenced  making  the  pen  from  seeing  some  of  his  (Sheldon's) 
make." 

Some  one  writing  under  the  nom  de  plu 
Sait,"  says  : 

"I  distinctly  recollect,  about  the  year  1806,  being 
in  Sedgley,  and  there  seeing  Thomas  Sheldon,  his  apj 
steel  pens.  He  knew  of  an  entry  in  his  books  of  pens 
Fellows  in  1807.  He  paid  Sheldon  £100  in  1822.  He  believed 
lows  made  pens  in  1793.  Beilby  and  Knott  (Birmingham  stationers) 
sold  these  pens  in  considerable  quantities  from  1818  to  1828.  Sheldon 
continued  the  trade  until  it  was  destroyed  through  inability  to  compete 
with  the  machine-made  pens  of  Mitchell  and  Gillott." 

Another  writer,  "T.  S.,"  says  : 

"  In  1815,  an  uncle  of  mine  used  to  purchase  these  pens  from  Shel- 
don, of  Sedgley.  The  price  was  eighteen  shillings  per  dozen,  ten  per 
cent,  for  cash.  They  were  barrel  shape.  B.  Smith  and  Co.  had  in 
their  pattern  book  of  engravings  of  steel  toys  a  drawing  of  one  of  these 
pens,  which  were  sold  at  thirty  shillings  per  dozen  ;  also  one  in  a  bone 
handle,  the  top  of  which  screwed  off,  for  carrying  in  the  pocket,  at 
thirty-six  shillings  per  dozen." 

Another  correspondent,  writing  on  July  24,  1869,  men- 
tions (on  authority  of  the  late  Mr.  Alderman  Yates)  that 
an  old  man  named  Spittle  made  steel  pens  before  any  of 
the  present  makers. 


1 6  THE  STORY  OF  THE 

In  note  319  this  man  Spittle  is  mentioned  by  another 
writer,  who  says  : 

"A  man  named  Spittle,  one  of  the  earliest  makers  of  steel  pens,  lived 
in  Chequers'  Walk,  Bath  Row,  Birmingham.  He  made  steel  pens  for 
sale,  and  charged  one  shilling  each  for  them.  They  were  made  with  a 
tube  to  fit  on  a  quill.  I  bought  one  from  him  forty-five  years  ago 
(1824)." 

"  E.  W.,"  writing  in  1869,  says  : 

"In  1821  there  was  a  B.  Smith,  steel  toy  maker,  St.  Paul's  [Mary's] 
Square,  Birmingham.  He  had  a  book  of  engravings  of  steel  toys, 
among  which  were  steel  pens,  made  to  screw  on  and  off.  This  pat- 
tern book  might  have  been  one  hundred  years  old.  I  sold  his  pens 
in  1823." 

The  Editor  of  "Notes  and  Queries"  says  "Smith's 
pattern  book  was  probably  fifty  years  old,"  and  further 
remarks  that  steel  pens  must  have  been  a  regular  article 
of  manufacture  before  they  appeared  in  a  steel  toy 
maker's  pattern  book. 

"C.  J.,"  in  note  372,  says: 

"  The  pattern  book  of  John  Barnes,  Eagle  Works,  Wolverhampton, 
contains  engravings  of  early  steel  pens." 

Mr.  Robert  Griffin  says  : 

"  In  1824  I  wrote  very  much  with  a  steel  pen  made  under  the  direc- 
tion of  James  Perry — a  pen  that  lasted  about  eight  or  nine  weeks,  writ- 
ing eight  hours  a  day." 

In  note  344,  "  Anon  "  says  he  remembered  his  father 
(who  had  premises  in  Water  Street,  Birmingham),  in  the 
summer  of  1823,  bringing  a  tall,  quiet,  respectable  man 
to  the  manufactory.  He  had  a  piece  of  iron,  or  steel, 
which  he  required  to  be  cut  up  into  strips  of  about  two 
inches  wide.  The  man  said  he  was  going  to  get  the 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  I? 

strips  rolled  to  make  into  steel  pens.  He  gave  the  writer 
of  the  note  sixpence  and  a  barrel  pen  for  his  trouble. 
In  answer  to  inquiries  the  writer  put  to  his  father,  the 
latter  stated  he  did  not  know  the  man's  name  nor  where 
he  lived,  but  "  that  he  met  with  him  in  a  smoke  room, 
where  he  (the  father)  sometimes  spent  his  evenings." 
The  writer  further  remarks :  "  Where  the  man  had  got 
his  ideas  from  which  induced  him  to  try  his  hand  at  mak- 
ing steel  pens  I  do  not  know,  but  I  have  an  impression 
that  there  were  several  experimenters  in  existence  at 
that  time  ;  and  very  soon  afterward  Mr.  William  (Joseph) 
Gillott,  with  whom  my  father  was  on  terms  of  intimacy, 
came  into  notice  as  a  maker  of  steel  pens."  This  is  a 
very  important  statement,  as  it  fixes  a  date  respecting 
pens  being  made  from  sheet  steel. 

One  of  the  oldest  toolmakers  in  the  trade  has  informed 
us  that,  about  the  year  1823  or  1824,  he  was  frequently 
taken  by  his  father  to  visit  an  uncle  named  Clulee, 
who  rented  power  at  the  Water  Street  mill.  On  these 
occasions  his  father  and  uncle  would  talk  about  'the 
visits  of  Gillott  to  the  latter,  and  the  hopeful  manner  in 
which  he  spoke  of  the  experiments  he  was  then  making. 
Gillott  rented  power  at  the  Water  Street  mill,  and  was 
engaged  in  grinding  and  finishing  penknife  blades,  which 
were  inserted  in  one  end  of  a  silver  pencil  case,  which 
his  relative — Mitchell — was  then  making. 

Now,  who  was  this  "  tall,  quiet,  respectable  man  ?  "  It 
could  not  have  been  Gillott,  as  he  was  not  tall  and  the 
father  of  "  Anon  "  knew  him  ;  and  Mitchell  was  also  a 
short  man.  We  have  failed  to  trace  him,  and  his  identity 
is  lost  among  the  "  sowers  "  who  failed  to  reap  the  har- 
vest of  their  inventions. 


1 8  THE  STORY  OF  THE 

Mr.  George  Wallis,  speaking  of  steel  pens,  remarks : 

"  I  wrote  with  one  when  a  boy  (1822  to  1826),  having  found  several 
in  a  stock  of  old  steel  waste  in  the  warehouse  of  a  relative,  a  retired 
ornamental  steel  worker,  at  Wolverhampton.  These  pens  were  made 
(so  I  was  told)  for  the  London  market,  late  in  the  last  or  early  in  the 
present  century.  Certainly  they  were  made  fifteen  or,  perhaps,  twenty 
years,  when  I  found  them,  as  the  manufactory  in  which  they  had  been 
produced  had  been  closed  the  former  number  of  years.  They  con- 
sisted of  a  holder  of  steel,  with  flutings  and  facets.  One  was  solid  and 
tapered  to  lighten  it ;  the  other  had  a  barrel  with  an  internal  screw. 
The  pen  had  two  screws  ;  one  was  used  to  screw  the  pen  into  the  bar- 
rel for  use,  and  the  other  to  secure  it  when  turned  inwards  as  a  protec- 
tion when  not  in  use,  or  to  carry  in  the  pocket." 

The  following  letter  from  Mr.  Alderman  Manton  to 
Mr.  Sam:  Timmins  makes  us  acquainted  with  another 
manufacturer  of  steel  pens  : 

"  THE  METAL  PENS  OF  1823. — In  a  badly-constructed  and  unsani- 
tary manufactory  (Mr.  James  Collins's),  at  the  back  of  119  Suffolk  Street, 
(Birm.),  I  witnessed  the  process  of  making  silver  and  steel  pens.  As 
both  metals  were  manufactured  in  the  same  manner,  one  description 
will  serve.  It  will  be  remembered  by  a  few  that  at  that  time  there  was 
a  patent  silver  pencil  case  somewhat  extensively  manufactured,  which 
in  addition  to  the  pencil,  had  a  penknife,  pen  and  toothpick  provided. 
The  penknife  was  supplied  by  two  brothers — Joseph  and  William 
Gillott — who  at  that  time  rented  a  small  shop  in  a  corner  of  the  yard 
belonging  to  the  rolling  mill  of  George  and  P.  F.  Muntz,  Water  Street, 
and  from  whose  engine  they  obtained  the  small  amount  of  steam  power 
needed.  The  process  of  making  the  pens  was  as  follows  :  Two  nar- 
row strips  were  cut  from  a  sheet  of  silver  or  steel ;  they  were  then,  by 
the  help  of  the  hammer  and  a  lead  cake,  or  piece  of  hard  wood,  curved. 
Afterwards  the  two  strips  were  placed  opposite  to  each  other  on  a  well- 
polished  steel  wire,  and  drawn  through  a  draw-plate,  the  wire  and 
plate  being  supplied  by  Wm.  Billings,  a  celebrated  tool  manufacturer, 
occupying  premises  near  the  top  of  Snow  Hill  (Birm.).  By  the  aid  of 
a  press,  a  small  hole  was  made  at  a  distance  of  half  an  inch  or  five- 
eighths  from  the  end,  the  slit  was  then  made  by  a  fine  saw  made  of 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  19 

watch  springs.  A  bent  pair  of  shears  was  used  for  cutting  the  end  of 
strip  into  the  shape  of  a  pen  ;  and  a  half-round  file  or  smooth  was  used 
for  finishing  the  pen.  The  pen  was  then  sawn  off  the  strip  by  the 
same  saw  which  was  used  for  slitting  the  pen.  The  only  hardening 
process  was  the  friction  of  the  draw-plate  and  steel  wire.  I  not  only 
witnessed  the  process,  but  was  a  manipulator.  The  cost  of  making  at 
that  time,  by  a  journeyman,  was  2d.  each  ;  by  an  apprentice,  about 
one-third  of  that  amount.  Within  less  than  thirty  years  of  that  time, 
in  a  manufactory  adjoining  my  own,  pens  were  made  and  sold  (whole- 
sale) at  2d.  per  gross,  and  a  box  containing  them  into  the  bargain." 
(Signed]  Henry  Manton,  September  15,  1886. 

Mr.  T.  Vary  writes  that  James  Perry  began  making 
steel  pens  in  Manchester,  and  quotes  the  Saturday  Maga- 
zine to  show  that  metallic  pens  were  given  by  him  as  re- 
wards of  merit  in  schools  as  far  back  as  1819. 

Mr.  James  Cocker,  writing  in  the  Sheffield  Daily  Tele- 
graph, in  1869,  says  :  "  That  he  rolled  steel  wire  for  James 
Perry  for  penmaking  in  1829." 

The  death  of  Mr.  Gillott  seems  to  have  revived  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  origin  of  steel  pens,  and  a  correspondent 
in  the  Sheffield  Daily  Telegraph,  in  the  issue  of  January 
n,  1872,  in  the  following  letter,  puts  forth  a  claim  on 
behalf  of  a  Sheffield  man  : 

"  The  well-written  and  well-merited  memoir  of  the  late  Mr.  Gillott, 
the  Birmingham  steel  pen  maker,  which  has  just  appeared  in  the  news- 
papers, affords  a  curious  and  instructive  illustration  of  the  success  which 
not  seldom  attends  the  combined  action  of  ingenuity,  industry,  shrewd- 
ness, and  integrity  among  our  labouring  classes.  Born  in  the 
humblest  rank  of  our  local  workmen,  a  steady  scholar  in  our  Boys' 
Lancasterian  School,  and  apprenticed  to  a  scissors  grinder,  the  deceased 
worked  his  way  upwards  into  a,  position  of  influence  and  opulence  as  a 
manufacturer,  which  entitled  him  to~take  social  rank  with  the  merchant 
princes  of  the  land.  And  if  his  name  has  long  since  ceased  to  be 
familiar  among  his  once  contemporary  workmen  in  Sheffield,  and  is 
not  even  mentioned  in  the  Directory,  it  has  for  several  years  past  been 


20  THE  STOR  Y  OF  THE 

recognized  and  respected  by  the  visitors  at  the  annual  exhibitions  of 
our  School  of  Art,  in  connection  with  the  many  rare  and  valuable  pict- 
ures lent  by  him  on  those  occasions.  The  printed  fac-simile  of  the 
autograph  appeared  in  the  '  advertising  columns '  of  almost  every  news- 
paper in  the  world,  and  perhaps,  as  an  expert  might  have  said,  was 
characteristic.  In  the  admirable  account  of  his  life  above  referred  to 
stress  is  laid  upon  one  prominent  and  praiseworthy  feature  of  his  char- 
acter, viz. ,  his  readiness  to  acknowledge  the  obscurity  of  his  origin  and 
the  steps  of  his  industrial  success.  In  those  details  no  mention  is  made 
of  his  Sheffield  master  and  predecessor  in  the  ingenious  art  of  steel  pen 
making.  And  as  the  notice  alluded  to  is  without  dates,  it  is  difficult 
to  furnish  information  on  the  material  point  of  priority,  though  the  fact 
of  supremacy  in  the  trade  is  clear  enough.  In  one  of  the  columns  of 
Lardner's  Cyclopedia,  published  in  1833,  the  names  of  Perry,  Heeley, 
and  Skinner  are  mentioned  as  steel  pen  makers.  With  the  latter,  who 
if  he  did  not  make  wealth,  certainly  earned  a  wide  reputation  for  the 
low  price  and  excellent  temper  of  his  '  steel  nibs,'  Mr.  Gillott  was  a 
workman,  in  Nursery  Street,  Sheffield,  having  gone  with  his  master 
from  the  scissors  grinding  stone  to  the  making  of  polished  steel  orna- 
ments for  ladies'  work,  then  fashionable.  How  much,  in  what  way, 
or  whether  at  all,  he  was  indebted  to  his  experience  in  Mr.  Skinner's 
establishment  may  be  questionable,  but  that  he  learnt  and  first  saw 
practised  in  Sheffield  the  art  that  ultimately  enriched  him  in  Birming- 
ham, he  would  probably  be  the  last  to  deny.  It  is  well  remembered 
by  a  worthy  dealer  in  almost  every  useful  article,  from  a  mouse-trap  to 
a  railroad  wagon,  that  Gillott,  soon  after  his  establishment  in  Bir- 
mingham, came  into  our  townsman's  shop,  and  seeing  on  the  counter 
a  model  steam  engine  of  half-horse  power,  at  once  purchased  and  car- 
ried it  off  to  give  motion  to  some  part  of  his  pen  machinery.  Brass 
pens  were  made  in  Sheffield  before  the  close  of  the  last  century.  They 
mostly  accompanied  an  '  inkpot,'  called  from  its  users  an  '  exciseman.' 
The  writer  of  this  paragraph  himself  made  hundreds  of  dozens  of 
them,  which,  however,  he  never  used,  nor  steel  ones  either,  as  long  as 
he  could  get  a  '  goose  quill,'  good,  bad  or  indifferent.  The  matter  of 
slitting  the  nib  was  kept  secret  by  Skinner,  and  the  double  slit  of 
Gillott  more  than  doubled  the  value  of  his  old  master's  invention  ; 
but  a  '  four-slit'  pen,  i.  <?.,  with  five  points,  if  possible  to  make,  would 
be  useless.  The  earliest  experimenter  in  form  and  material  was  Perry, 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  21 

flexibility  being  the  great  desideratum  ;  but  it  is  curious  to  see  how 
world-wide  a  currency  Gillott's  name  and  trade  have  given  to  the 
simplest  shape  ;  and  still  more  curious  to  note  how  the  makers  of 
writing  ink  and  paper  have  conformed  these  articles  to  the  require- 
ments of  the  uses  of  the  steel  pen.  It  is  always  gratifying,  and  not 
unprofitable,  to  contrast  the  small  and  feeble  beginnings  of  any  manu- 
facturing enterprise  with  a  large  and  well-merited  success." 

This  communication  appears  to  have  caused  a  Mr. 
William  Levesley  to  call  u'pon  the  writer  of  the  preced- 
ing epistle,  and  the  following  which  appeared  in  the 
Sheffield  Daily  Telegraph,  January  30,  1872,  was  written : 

"  I  have  to  thank  you  for  the  insertion  of  my  queries  as  to  the  early 
connection%f  Sheffield  with  steel  pen  making.  In  consequence  of  the 
appearance  of  my  letter  in  the  Telegraph,  a  cutlery  manufacturer  of 
the  name  of  William  Levesley,  called  upon  me,  and  informed  me  that 
he  was  not  only  an  early  associate  with  the  late  Mr.  Gillott,  of  Bir- 
mingham, but  the  first  person  who  made  a  steel  pen  out  of  London. 
Stress  has  been  laid  upon  Gillott's  ability  '  to  forge  and  grind  a  knife- 
blade.'  It  is  not  likely  he  ever  used  the  hammer  on  hot  steel,  but  he 
was  when  young,  and  working  with  father,  accounted  an  excellent  pen- 
knife grinder  ;  Skinner  being  a  scissors  grinder,  and  Levesley  a  work- 
board  hand  for  the  same  master.  A  man  of  the  name  of  Mitchell  hav- 
ing married  Gillott's  mother,  went  to  Birmingham,  and  began  the  cut- 
lery business,  the  latter  removing  thither  to  grind  for  his  father-in-law. 
His  brother  had  also  gone  thither,  and  commenced  making  an  article 
that  had  some  run,  and  may  be  said  to  have  united  the  ingenious  handi- 
crafts of  Birmingham,  viz. ,  the  insertion  of  a  penknife  blade  at  the  end 
of  a  silver  pencil  case.  Meanwhile,  about  the  year  1825,  Levesley  saw 
a  steel  pen,  made  by  Perry,  of  London,  in  Ridge's  shop  window,  in 
High  Street.  He  bought  it  for  one  shilling,  and  immediately  set  about 
making  tools  to  imitate  and  improve  upon  it.  He  spent,  he  said,  £30 
in  not  unsuccessful,  though  unremunerative,  experiments.  The  fly- 
press  was  at  least  as  well  known  in  Sheffield  as  in  Birmingham,  and  its 
power  was  at  once  brought  into  requisition  to  work  the  tools  for  shap- 
ing, bending,  and  slitting  the  pens  which  were  made  out  of  sheet  steel, 
Perry's  being  made  out  of  thick  wire,  rolled  flat,  by  Cocker,  in  Nursery 


THE  STORY  OF  THE 


Street.  In  1829,  Levesley  was  making  pens  for  sale,  and  that  year  is 
said  to  be  the  earliest  date  of  actual  sales  in  Skinner's  ledger.  In  1831 
he  was  doing  a  considerable  business  in  Sheffield,  and  making  experi- 
ments upon  the  article,  as  appears  from  specimens  before  me  bearing 
his  name.  Stress  has  been  laid  upon  the  improvement  of  the  double 
slit,  introduced  by  Gillott,  but  if  Levesley's  statement  is  to  be  taken 
literally,  he  was  the  inventor  of  a  specialty  upon  which,  even  more  than 
on  excellence  of  material,  the  merit  of  a  steel  pen  is  found  to  depend, 
viz.,  the  grinding  of  a  small  hollow  at  the  back  of  the  nib,  and  about 
the  eighth  of  an  inch  from  the  point.  My  informant  described  not  only 
the  beneficial  action  of  this  thinning  of  the  metal,  as  well  in  yielding 
the  gradual  flow  of  the  ink  as  in  flexibility  of  writing,  but  the  pleasure 
with  which  he  took  a  specimen  to  Birmingham  to  show  Gillott,  and  the 
surprise  of  the  latter  at  so  great  and  so  beneficial  an  effect,  provided 
by  so  small  a  cause.  He  at  once  adopted  an  improvement  of  which 
every  pen  made  by  him  bears  evidence  ;  and  when  his  friend  visited 
him  he  told  him  he  had  fifty  women  employed  in  grinding  pen  points. 
It  is  pleasant  to  add  that  Gillott  never  visited  Sheffield  without  calling 
to  see  his  old  friend  Levesley,  while  the  latter  spoke  of  his  early  and 
later  life  with  respect  and  commendation,  especially  in  his  domestic 
relations.  It  is  pleasing  to  review  a  life  of  such  humble  beginnings, 
culminating  in  opulence  and  usefulness  like  that  of  the  late  Joseph 
Gillott,  of  Birmingham  ;  nor  is  it  less  to  name  in  connection  therewith, 
as  an  early  experimenter  in  steel  pen  making,  our  worthy  townsman, 
William  Levesley,  to  whose  ingenious  improvement  every  writer  is  so 
much  indebted,  and  of  whose  verbal  communication  to  me  the  forego- 
ing is  an  imperfect  sketch."  ' 

Now,  in  this  statement,  there  are  some  dates  given, 
but  others  are  omitted,  and  that  is  a  very  unfortunate 
circumstance.  Levesley  told  the  writer  of  the  article  in 
the  Sheffield  Daily  Telegraph  that  he  made  use  of  the  fly 
press  for  working  tools  for  shaping,  bending,  and  slitting 
pens.  If  the  writer  had  only  given  the  date  of  this  it 
would  have  been  a  valuable  contribution  toward  a  his- 
tory of  the  invention.  The  claim  of  Levesley  to  having 
invented  the  process  of  grinding  pens  and  teaching 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  23 

Gillott  seems,  to  say  the  least,  curious,  because  the  latter 
was  a  Sheffield  grinder,  and  the  idea  would  certainly  be 
quite  as  likely  to  occur  to  Gillott  as  Levesley.  Besides, 
why  did  LevesLey  communicate  the  idea  to  Gillott  in 
preference  to  Skinner,  with  whom  he  had  business  rela- 
tions? The  statement  that  Gillott  had  fifty  girls  em- 
ployed when  Levesley*  called  upon  him  on  his  next  visit 
to  Birmingham  looks  like  a  mistake.  Fifty  girls  would 
grind  on  an  average  seven  thousand  gross  of  pens  in  a 
week,  and  as  this  correspondence  appears  to  refer  to  the 
early  part  of  Gillott's  career,  it  is  scarcely  possible  that 
such  a  number  of  pens  were  produced  weekly  at  that 
period.  Besides,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  boys  were,  in  the 
first  instance,  employed  to  grind  pens. 

Herr  Ignaz  Nagel,  in  his  "  Report  on  Writing,  Draw- 
ing, and  Painters'  Requisites,"  at  the  Vienna  Exhibition, 
1873,  says : 

"From  careful  inquiries  that  we  made  in  Birmingham,  we  learned 
that  a  knife  cutler,  of  Sheffield,  was  the  first  man  who  had  the  idea  of 
making  pens  of  steel,  and  that  a  tinman  of  the  name  of  Skipper 
[Skinner],  of  Sheffield,  afterwards  manufactured  the  pens  in  great  quan- 
tities. His  son  developed  the  idea  still  further.  This,  according  to 
our  informant,  was  fifty  years  ago.  A  steel  pen  artisan,  working  in 
Birmingham,  remembers  perfectly  well  reading  the  announcement  in  a 
window  of  the  High  Street,  in  Sheffield,  1816 :  '  Steel  pens  are 


*  Mr.  Sam:  Timmins  says,  "  that  Levesley  told  him  that  Gillott  started  in 
Birmingham  as  a  jobbing  cutler  ;  that  Mitchell  had  the  secret  of  pen  making  ; 
that  Mitchell  sent  for  Gillott  to  come  to  Birmingham,  and  that  he  (J.  G.)  first 
lived  at  the  top  of  Water  Street ;  that  Gillott  began  to  make  pens  in  Bread 
Street ;  that  Perry  made  pens  from  flattened  steel  wire,  the  breadth  of  the 
pen  (the  steel  was  33.  6d.  per  lb.,  and  drawn  at  Old  Ford);  that  he  had  seen 
cross  grinding  (at  Gillott's)  in  Newhall  Street,  and  fifty  women  at  work ;  and 
that  pens  1  ad  double  slits  and  cut  holes.  Levesley  certainly  knew  all  the 
Gillott  family,  personally,  in  Sheffield,  and  he  (S.  T.)  had  a  long  interview  with 
him  shortly  before  his  death,  when  he  mentioned  all  the  facts  given  here." 


24  THE  STORY  OF  THE 

repaired  here  at  sixpence  apiece.'  There  was  a  man  named  Spittle,  in 
Birmingham,  who  used  to  make  steel  pens  by  hand.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  brothers  John  and  William  Mitchell,  who  were  manu- 
facturers of  steel  pens,  wholesale  and  by  machinery,  about  forty-five 
years  ago.  Perry  came  afterwards,  and  took  out  a  patent  for  the  first 
steel  pens,  and  after  him  Gillott,  who  had  learnt  the  business  with  the 
Mitchells." 

A  writer  in  Herbert's  Encyclopedia,  published  in  1837, 
says  : 

"  The  first  decided  attempt  to  introduce  metallic  pens  to  general  use 
was  made  by  Mr.  Wise,  whose  perpetual  pens  will  doubtless  be  remem- 
bered by  many  of  our  readers.  The  name  of  Wrise  was  rendered  con- 
spicuous in  most  of  our  stationers'  shops  some  twenty-five  or  thirty 
years  since,  as  the  original  inventor  and  general  manufacturer  of  the 
steel  pens." 

We  stated  at  the  beginning  of  this  article  that  of  three 
men — Mitchell,  Gillott,  and  Mason — who  might  have 
done  something  toward  fixing  the  date  of  the  inven- 
tion of  manufacturing  pens  by  the  adaptation  of  tools 
worked  by  the  screw  press,  only  one — Mason  —  made  a 
statement : 

"  The  first  making  of  steel  pens  that  I  know  of  was  about  the  year 
1780,  by  my  late  friend  Mr.  Harrison,  for  Dr.  Priestley.  He  took 
sheet  steel,  made  a  tube  of  it,  and  the  part  joined  formed  the  slit  of  the 
pen.  He  then  filed  away  the  barrel  and  formed  the  pen.  I  found 
some  of  the  identical  pens  amongst  other  articles  and  used  them  for  a 
long  time. 

' '  The  second  mode  of  making  pens  was  by  punching  a  rough  blank 
out  of  thin  sheet  steel.  This  blank  formed  the  well-known  barrel  pen. 
It  was  brought  into  the  barrel  shape  by  rounding,  but  before  rounding 
it  had  to  be  filed  into  a  better  form  about  the  nib,  and  when  rounded 
in  the  soft  state,  a  sharp  chisel  was  used  to  mark  the  inside  of  the  pen 
which  became  the  slit,  after  hardening.  Before  tempering,  this  mark 
was  '  tabbered '  with  a  small  hammer,  and  it  would  crack  where  the 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  25 

inside  mark  was  made.  Then  it  was  tempered  and  underwent  grind- 
ing, and  shaping  the  nib  until  a  point  suitable  for  fine  or  broad,  as 
required. 

"  I  made  barrel  pens  in  1828,  and  '  slip'  pens  for  Perry  in  1829,  and 
the  first  lot  of  100  at  one  time  was  sent  November  20,  1830.  Fre- 
quently, lots  of  20  or  30  gross  were  sent  between  1829  and  1830,  and 
in  1831  I  sent  pens  to  Perry  amounting  to  £1,421  is.  3d. 

' '  Perry  certainly  never  made  a  pen  as  they  are  now  made,  viz. ,  the 
slit  cttt  with  press  tools  ;  all  he  made  were  cracked  slit. 

"  I  made  steel  barrel  pens  some  time  before  I  made  '  slip  '  pens  for 
Perry. 

"  It  is  doubtful  when  metal  pens  were  made.  The  first  I  know  of 
were  made  by  Mr.  Harrison,  for  Dr.  Priestley.  Perry  was  certainly 
not  the  first  maker  of  steel  pens,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  was  the 
first  steel  slip  pen  maker,  and  no  doubt  the  first  to  use  a  goose  quill  for 
a  pen  holder,  hence  the  slip  pen. 

"  The  first  stick  pen  holders  I  made  for  Perry  in  1832,  and  for  Gillott 
in  1835,  and  sold  sticks  to  Gillott  in  1840 — £293  i8s.  yd." 

Mason  claimed  to  have  made  barrel  pens  for  Perry,  of 
London,  in  1828,  and  "slip  or  nibbed"  pens  in  1829; 
but  he  does  not  appear  to  have  made  any  claim  to  prior- 
ity of  invention  over  Mitchell  and  Gillott. 

Now,  although  Mitchell  made  no  claim  himself,  on  the 
death  of  Mr.  Gillott  the  following  letter  appeared  in  the 
Daily  Post : 

' '  The  remarks  which  have  appeared  in  a  local  paper  upon  the  death 
of  Mr.  J.  Gillott,  that  the  steel  pen  owes  its  existence  to  him,  and  that 
the  adaptation  of  machinery  to  the  manufacture  of  metallic  pens  was 
his  invention,  lead  the  public  to  wrong  conclusions.  It  is  due  to  the 
memory  of  my  late  father — John  Mitchell — that  I  should  state  that  he 
not  only  made  steel  pens,  but  used  machinery  in  their  production,  for 
some  time  before  Mr.  Gillott  commenced  in  that  branch  of  business." — 
HENRY  MITCHELL,  January  12,  1872. 

In  October,  1876,  Mr.  Henry  Mitchell  writes  to  Arts' 's 
Gazette,  and  says  : 


26  THE  STORY  OF  THE 

"  You  review,  in  your  impression  of  the  23d  inst.,  a  work  entitled 
'British  Manufacturing  Industries — the  Birmingham  Trades,'  in 
which  the  history  of  steel  pens  forms  a  prominent  chapter.  I  beg  to 
point  out  that  my  late  father's  name — John  Mitchell — is  certainly  men- 
tioned in  a  list  of  the  manufacturers  of  the  article,  and,  to  my  great 
surprise,  simply  so.  In  a  part  of  the  work  the  author  states  that  '  The 
early  history  of  steel  pens  is  involved  in  obscurity.'  My  object  in 
writing  to  you  is  to  remove  that  obscurity,  as  I  am  satisfied  you  will  be 
equally  desirous  of  giving  honor  to  whom  honor  is  due.  I  claim 
that  honor  for  my  late  father — John  Mitchell — who  was  the  first  to 
introduce  the  making  of  steel  pens  by  means  of  tools,  which  were  purely 
his  own  invention,  and  I  will  leave  it  to  an  enlightened  public  to  judge 
if  it  is  not  one  of  the  greatest  benefits  conferred  on  any  civilized  com- 
munity. Whatever  others  may  have  done  does  not  remove  the  fact 
that  the  inventor  I  have  named  was  tny  father  ;  and  it  is  only  due  to 
him  that  posterity  should  know  who  originated  the  means  whereby 
millions  of  human  beings  of  the  present  time,  and  generations  yet  un- 
born are,  and  will  be,  enabled  to  communicate  their  thoughts  to  each 
other  with  a  facility  they  otherwise  would  not  have  had.  For,  unless 
the  steel  pen  had  been  manufactured  by  tools  and  machinery,  that  use- 
ful article  would  virtually  be  at  a  prohibitory  price.  The  date  of  the 
invention  I  believe  to  be  1822  or  thereabouts." 

This  is  very  emphatic  ;  but  how  far  may  it  be  taken  as 
an  unprejudiced  statement  of  facts  ?  Well,  it  has  never 
been  contradicted  ;  and  Gillott  never  made  a  claim  on  his 
own  behalf,  as  having  made  pens  before  Mitchell.  Mason 
gave  the  year  1828  as  the  date  when  he  commenced 
making  pens,  so  that  the  evidence  is  in  favor  of  Mitchell. 

We  have  heard  this  statement  of  Henry  Mitchell  con- 
firmed by  a  man  who  worked  for  Mitchell,  as  a  boy,  and 
who  remembered  pens  being  made  for  Sheldon  by  Mitch- 
ell. It  is  probable  at  this  early  period  the  pens  were 
made  for  a  few  dealers,  and  the  general  public  was  un- 
acquainted with  the  names  of  the  manufacturers.  This 
circumstance  has  no  doubt  contributed  to  involve  in 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  27 

obscurity  the  early  operations  of  Mitchell  and  Gillott.  In 
a  notice  in  Lardners  Cyclopedia  (written  by  Mr.  John 
Holland,  of  Sheffield),  published  in  1833,  the  names  of 
three  penmakers  only  are  given  —  Perry,  Heeley,  and 
Skinner.  From  this  it  might  be  supposed  that  there  were 
no  other  penmakers  at  this  date  ;  but  Gillott  had  taken 
out  a  patent  in  1831,  and  the  names  of  both  Mitchell  and 
Gillott  appeared  as  penmakers  in  Wrightsons  Birming- 
ham Directory  for  1830.  It  cannot  be  supposed  that  Mr. 
Holland  wilfully  omitted  to  mention  the  names  of  Mitch- 
ell and  Gillott,  for  this  writer  was  an  impartial  and  pains- 
taking collector  of  facts,  but  it  is  probable  the  notice  was 
written  some  time  before  it  was  published  ;  and,  like  many 
little  masters,  Mitchell  and  Gillot  were  only  known  as 
penmakers  to  the  wholesale  dealers  in  Birmingham,  upon 
whom  they  depended  for  orders,  consequently  Mr.  Hol- 
land would  be  ignorant  of  their  existence. 

In  speaking  of  the  demand  for  steel  pens,  the  writer  in 
Lardner's  says  :  "  The  rage  originated  chiefly,  if  not  al- 
together, in  the  successful  speculations  of  Mr.  James 
Perry,  of  London,  whose  pens,  however  short  their  merits 
may  fall  of  the  praise  of  the  inventor,  are  certainly  su- 
perior to  most  others  composed  of  a  like  material.  Perry 
began  to  make  steel  pens,  in  Manchester,  in  1819,  and  in 
London  in  1824."  The  press  and  tools  with  which  these 
pens  were  made  are  still  in  the  possession  of  Perry  and 
Co.,  at  their  warehouse  in  the  Holburn  Viaduct.  This 
fact  tends  to  confirm  the  statement  that  Mr.  James  Perry 
was  one  of  the  earliest  experimenters  in  the  manufacture 
of  the  article.  Levesley  says  he  bought  one  of  Perry's 
pens,  which  he  saw  in  a  shop  window  in  Sheffield,  in 
1825,  and  he  took  it  to  his  workshop  and  improved  upon 


28  THE  STORY  OF  THE 

it.  This  is  somewhat  similar  to  the  account  given  by 
Mason  of  his  first  experiment  in  pen  making.  Mason 
saw  a  pen  of  Perry's  in  the  window  of  a  bookseller  named 
Peart,  in  Bull  Street,  Birmingham,  in  1828,  which  he  pur- 
chased and  took  home.  Finding  he  could  produce  a 
better  article,  which  could  be  sold  at  a  cheaper  rate,  he 
made  some  and  sent  them  to  Mr.  James  Perry,  in  Lon- 
don, and  that  gentleman  shortly  after  waited  upon  Josiah 
Mason,  at  his  place  of  business  in  Lancaster  Street,  and 
the  interview  resulted  in  Mason  beginning  to  make  pens 
for  Perry.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  writer  in  the 
Sheffield  Daily  Telegraph  stated  that  the  earliest  experi- 
menter in  form  and  material  was  Perry. 

Leaving  the  honor  of  having  originated  the  application 
of  labor-saving  machinery  for  the  manufacture  of  steel 
pens  to  Mitchell,  it  would  appear  that  the  merit  of  hav- 
ing popularized  the  article  is  due  to  Perry.  In  1830,  Mr. 
James  Perry  issued  a  circular  containing  a  series  of  en- 
gravings of  metallic  pens,  showing  the  improvements  he 
had  patented  in  their  manufacture.  In  this  circular  it  is 
stated  :  "  Till  about  six  months  ago  the  public  had  heard 
little  of  metallic  pens.  At  present,  it  would  seem  that 
comparatively  few  of  any  other  kind  are  in  the  hands  of 
any  class  of  the  community.  This  sudden  transition  may 
clearly  be  traced  to  the  announcement  of  the  Patent  Per- 
ryian  Pens  in  various  periodicals,  about  six  months  ago, 
and  to  the  general  demand  which  ensued  for  that  pen  in 
every  part  of  the  empire." 

Although  this  might  be  regarded  as  an  ex-parte  state- 
ment, it  is  confirmed  by  independent  testimony  that 
Perry  popularized  the  article.  The  Saturday  Magazine, 
1838,  says  : 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL   PENS.  29 

"About  twelve  years  ago  (1825),  the  celebrated  Perryian  pens  first  ap- 
peared. Mr.  Perry  may  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  great  improver  ; 
many  of  his  pens  are  ingenious  and  original  in  construction.  Ke  ar- 
ranges his  pens  into  genera  and  species.  Mr.  Perry  first  overcame  the 
rigidity  complained  of  in  steel  pens  by  introducing  apertures  between 
the  shoulder  and  point  of  the  pen,  thus  transferring  the  elasticity  of  the 
pen  to  a  position  below  instead  of  above  the  shoulder.  This  was  the 
subject  of  his  patent  in  1830." 

Mr.  Sam:  Timmins,  in  1866,  writes : 

44  No  skill  in  manufacture,  however,  could  conquer  the  prejudice 
against  any  metallic  pen,  and  to  Mr.  James  Perry  the  world  is  much 
indebted  for  persevering  advocacy  of  the  steel  pen,  and  for  one  of  the 
most  important  improvements  in  its  form.  Mr.  Perry,  with  his  char- 
acteristic energy,  almost  forced  the  steel  pen  into  use,  and  was  supplied 
with  pens  of  a  first-class  quality  by  Mr.  Josiah  Mason,  of  this  town." 

Furthermore,  it  is  certain  that  about  this  time,  steel 
pens  began  rapidly  to  supersede  the  use  of  quills,*  and 
the  trade  was  recognized  as  a  rising  industry.  It  is  true 
that  it  still  retained  the  secretive  character  with  which 
its  operations  were  conducted  in  its  earlier  days,  which 
indeed  in  some  respects  distinguish  it  at  the  present  time. 
Its  activity  or  dullness  seldom  troubles  the  writers  of  the 
"  Trade  Reports  "  in  the  local  press,  although  they  some- 
times inform  their  readers  about  good  orders  having  been 


*In  a  humorous  article,  "The  Web-footed  Interests,"  which  appeared  in 
Tail's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  vol.  iii.,  page  280  (1833),  there  is  a  petition  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  from  Ganders,  Geese  &  Goslings,  setting  forth  the  evils 
likely  to  ensue  from  the  use  of  metallic  pens.  It  prognosticates  depression  in 
agriculture  and  manufactures  consequent  upon  a  diminution  in  the  amount 
of  grain  consumed,  and  a  falling  off  in  the  demand  for  penknives ;  and  draws 
an  alarming  picture  of  the  possible  failure  of  the  supply  of  iron  ware,  and  the 
total  extinction  of  literature,  likely  to  ensue  thrqj^gk'a  stdppage  in  the  supply 
of  steel  pens, — the  web-footed  interest  being  jd^Sosed  to  have  ceased  to  exist. 
The  petition  concludes  with  a  prayer  that  dfiemVAfacture  of  metallic  pens  be 
prohibited. 


3°  THE   STORY  OF  THE 

placed  for  mousetraps,  stove  screws,  snuffer  trays,  candle 
extinguishers,  and  sad  irons. 

To  the  writers  of  the  present  generation,  who  can  pur- 
chase fairly-good  pens  at  one  shilling  or  one  shilling  and 
sixpence  per  gross,  it  seems  hard  to  realize  that  people 
once  gave  one  shilling  each  for  substitutes  for  quills.  It 
is  true  that  quills  could  then  be  bought  for  a  halfpenny 
and  penny  each,  but  how  difficult  it  was  to  acquire  the 
art  of  successfully  manipulating  the  same  into  a  pen  the 
following  anecdote  from  "  Edwards'  Life  of  Rowland 
Hill  "  will  testify  : 

"  Mrs.  Sinkinson,  of  Jamaica  Row,  Birmingham,  tells  me  she  went  to 
a  school  in  Hurst  Street,  and  that  she  remembered  that  old  Mr.  Hill 
came  one  day  a  week  to  teach  arithmetic,  and  Rowland  [Sir  Rowland 
Hill]  on  another  to  teach  writing.  In  those  days  there  were  no  steel 
pens,  and  Rowland  couldn't  mend  a  pen,  so  that  whenever  he  came  he 
was  accompanied  by  his  brother,  Matthew  Davenport,  whose  office  it 
was  to  mend  the  pens  used  by  the  pupils  the  preceding  week." 

Sir  Josiah  Mason  used  to  relate  a  similar  circumstance 
in  his  own  life,  when  at  Kidderminster,  that  he  accom- 
panied his  brother  Richard,  who  was  a  Sunday-school 
teacher,  to  mend  the  pens. 

Comparing  the  crude  specimens  of  early  steel  pens 
with  the  finished  productions  of  the  present  day,  we  -may 
be  inclined  to  think  that  some  praise  was  due  to  the 
people  who  persevered  in  the  use  of  them  ;  but  that  the 
purchasers  of  these  early  productions  did  appreciate  them 
we  have  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Robert  Griffin,  who  says 
that  he  wrote  for  eight  weeks,  eight  hours  a  day,  with  a 
pen  made  by  Perry,  in  1824.  Now,  the  old  ".scribes"  as 
the  law  stationers'  writers  were  called,  were  generally 
allowed  one  quill  a  day,  and  as  the  work  of  the  day 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL   PENS.  31 

usually  wore  out  the  longest  quill,  a  considerable  amount 
of  time  must  have  been  occupied  in  the  renovation  of 
the  article.*  This  would  be  a  serious  inconvenience  to 
those  who  could  manufacture  a  quill  into  a  pen,  but  as 
this  was  by  no  means  an  universal  accomplishment,  we 
can  form  an  idea  how  even  these  clumsy  substitutes 
found  purchasers  at  such  high  prices. 

Tom  Hood,  in  his  "Whims  and  Oddities,"  gives  some 
idea  of  the  pre-steel-pen  era  : 

"  In  times  begone,  when  each  man  cut  his  quill, 

With  little  Perryian  skill  ; 

What  horrid,  awkward,  bungling  tools  of  trade 
Appeared  the  writing  instruments,  home  made  ! 
WTiat  pens  were  sliced,  hewed,  hacked,  and  haggled  out, 
Slit  or  unslit,  with  many  a  various  snout, 
Aquiline,  Roman,  crooked,  square,  and  snubby, 

Humpy  and  stubby  ; 
Some  capable  of  ladye-billets  neat, 
Some  only  fit  for  ledger-keeping  clerk, 
And  some  to  grub  down,  Peter  Stubbs,  his  mark, 
Or  smudge  through  some  illegible  receipt, 
Others  in  florid  caligraphic  plans, 
Equal  to  ships,  and  wiggy  heads,  and  swans  ! 
To  try  in  any  common  inkstands  then, 
With  all  their  miscellaneous  stocks, 

To  find  a  decent  pen, 
Was  like  a  dip  into  a  lucky-box  ; 
You  drew,  and  got  one  very  curly, 
And  split  like  endive  in  some  hurly-burly  ; 
The  next  unslit,  a  square  at  end,  a  spade  ; 
The  third,  incipient  pop-gun,  not  yet  made  ; 


*  The  writer  recollects  the  tedious  waiting  for  the  patient  usher,  who  passed 
from  desk  to  desk  with  his  penknife,  mending  pens,  and  paying  very  little  at- 
tention to  anything  else  ;  also  the  wonder  felt  and  expressed  at  the  first  sight 
of  steel  nibs,  and  how  they  dug  into  the  paper. 


32  THE   STORY  OF  THE 

The  fourth  a  broom  ;  the  fifth  of  no  avail, 
Turned  upwards,  like  a  rabbit's  tail  ; 
And  last,  not  least,  by  way  of  a  relief, 
A  stump  that  Master  Richard,  James,  or  John 
Had  tried  his  candle  cookery  upon, 
Making  '  roast  beef  !  ' ' 

These  early  pens  were  at  first  made  from  a  piece  of 
steel  formed  into  a  tube,  and  filed  into  the  shape  of  a 
pen  by  hand,  the  joint  of  the  two  edges  forming  the  slit. 
Afterward  a  blank  was  roughly  punched  out,  filed  into 
shape,  and  the  slit  marked  out  with  a  chisel  while  the 
blank  was  in  a  soft  state.  It  was  then  shaped,  hardened, 
tempered,  ground,  and  the  slit  cracked  through  by 
means  of  a  hammer  and  tool  at  the  place  where  the  mark 
had  been  made.  The  engravings  of  the  pens  by  Ed- 
wards, which  appeared  in  Wrightsons  Directory,  1823, 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  piercing,  side  cutting  and  slit- 
ting were  executed  by  mechanical  appliances.  Possibly, 
Edwards  was  not  a  manufacturer  himself,  but  had  his 
pens  made  for  him  by  Mitchell. 

In  the  pre-steel-pen  era  there  were  many  attempts 
made  to  supersede  quills.  In  "  Peveril  of  the  Peak," 
Mistress  Chiffinch  speaks  of  her  diamond  pen.  There 
was  a  pen  the  nibs  of  which  were  of  ruby,  set  in  gold, 
made  by  Doughty.  Dr.  Wollaston  made  gold  pens  tipped 
with  rhodium. 

During  the  time  the  early  makers  of  steel  pens  were 
perfecting  the  article,  several  experimenters  were  offering 
to  the  public  writing  instruments  made  from  various 
materials.  Bramah  patented  "  quill  nibs"  made  by  split- 
ting quills  and  cutting  the  semi-cylinders  into  sections, 
which  were  shaped  into  pens,  and  adapted  to  be  placed 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL   PENS.  33 

in  a  holder.  Hawkins  and  Mordan,  in  1823,  made  use 
of  horn  and  tortoise-shell,  which  was  cut  into  "nibs," 
softened  in  water,  and  small  pieces  of  ruby  and  other 
precious  stones  were  then  embedded  in  by  pressure.  In 
this  way  they  insured  durability  and  great  elasticity.  In 
order  to  give  stability  to  the  nib  thin  pieces  of  gold  or 
other  metal  were  affixed  to  the  tortoise-shell. 

Looking  back  at  the  early  operations  of  the  trade,  and 
considering  that  steel  pens  were  made  by  hand  at  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century,  we  can  scarcely  under- 
stand why  the  idea  of  cheapening  the  production  by  the 
application  of  labor-saving  contrivances  did  not  occur  to 
those  inventive  geniuses,  the  proprietors  of  Soho.  Boul- 
ton  had  expended  some  time  in  perfecting  the  manufact- 
ure of  steel  buttons.  That  local  Admirable  Crichton, 
Humphrey  Jefferies,  does  not  appear  to  have  ever  directed 
his  attention  to  the  manufacture  of  this  article,  which  has 
now  become  a  prime  necessity  of  civilization.  Yet  we 
hear  of  his  success  in  the  improvement  of  buttons,  and 
button-makers  must  have  used  the  screw  press  and  tools 
for  cutting  out  the  blank  and  shaping  it  into  form  ;  and 
the  process  of  slitting  had  been  anticipated,  for  printers 
had  a  brass  rule-cutting  machine  in  use,  the  cutters  of 
which  bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  those  now  used  for 
slitting  steel  pens.  Like  most  of  the  pioneers  in  the  path 
of  invention,  the  majority  of  the  early  makers  of  pens 
were  men  whose  business  pursuits  gave  them  no  special 
facilities  for  entering  upon  the  manufacture  of  steel  pens. 
The  progress  of  the  trade  from  1829  (with  the  exception 
of  the  period  when  Perry  and  Gillott  first  commenced 
advertising)  had  been  gradual,  but  satisfactory.  In  one 
of  Gillott's  early  advertisements,  he  stated  that  he  made 


34  THE   STORY  OF  THE 

490,361  gross  in  1842,  and  730,031  in  1843.  This  was 
an  advance  by  leaps  and  bounds  which  has  not  since 
been  maintained.  Although  Mason  commenced  making 
pens  for  Perry  in  the  year  1828,  yet  it  was  not  till  1861 
that  his  name  became  known  in  England  as  a  steel-pen 
maker.  Many  merchants  in  Birmingham  and  Wolver- 
hampton,  who  purchased  steel  rings  from  him,  had  no 
idea  that  he  was  a  maker  of  pens  ;  yet  on  the  Continent 
of  Europe  pens  bearing  his  name  were  eagerly  sought 
after.  Subsequent  to  1861  he  was  associated  with  Perry, 
until,  in  1876,  the  trade-marks,  patents,  etc.,  were  pur- 
chased by  a  limited  liability  company,  who  now,  under 
the  name  of  "  Perry  &  Co.,"  have  become  'the  largest 
manufacturers  of  pens  in  the  world. 

At  the  present  time  (1889)  there  are  thirteen  firms  en- 
gaged in  the  trade  in  Birmingham,  and  they  make  up 
about  twenty-four  tons  of  steel  per  week  into  pens  and 
penholder  tips.  Making  due  allowance  for  the  material 
used  in  the  latter  article,  this  consumption  would  prob- 
ably represent  a  weekly  average  production  of  200,000 
grosses  of  pens.  The  Birmingham  penmakers  employ 
about  3,500  women  and  girls,  and  650  men  and  boys ; 
and  besides  these  the  number  of  women  and  girls  work- 
ing at  making  paper  boxes,  in  which  the  pens  are  packed, 
would  probably  exceed  300.  In  addition  to  this  there 
are  several  mills  where  steel  is  rolled  for  those  firms  who 
have  not  sufficient  power  on  their  own  premises,  but 
there  is  a  difficulty  in  stating  the  number  of  hands  em- 
ployed. The  wages  of  the  females  range  from  four  shil- 
lings to  fifteen  shillings  ;  those  of  the  boys  from  five 
shillings  to  ten  shillings.  The  unskilled  workmen  earn 
from  twelve  shillings  to  twenty-four  shillings  ;  and  skilled 


INVENTION  OF  STEEL  PENS.  35 

men,  or  toolmakers,  command  wages  varying  from 
twenty-five  shillings  to  three  pounds.  Most  of  the  fe- 
males work  upon  the  piece-work  system,  but  the  men 
are  paid  weekly  wages. 

In  1835,  upon  the  authority  of  a  writer  in  the  Me- 
chanics Magazine,  two  tons  two  hundred  weight  of  steel 
were  used  weekly  in  the  manufacture  of  pens.  Mr.  Sam: 
Timmins  made  an  approximate  estimate  that  six  and 
a  half  tons  of  steel  were  used  per  week  for  steel  pens  in 
1849  ;  and  again,  in  1886,  he  gives  the  amount  of  steel 
as  having  increased  to  ten  tons.  It  is  at  all  times  diffi- 
cult to  form  an  accurate  estimate  of  the  quantity  of 
material  used,  but  we  believe  we  are  within  the  mark 
in  putting  down  the  present  consumption  of  steel  at 
twenty-two  tons  weekly.  From  this  it  would  appear 
that  the  trade  has  doubled  its  production  during  the  last 
twenty  years.  Besides  these  Birmingham  houses  there 
are  some  four  or  five  manufactories  on  the  Continent,  and 
two  in  the  United  States,  but  their  productions  have  not 
increased  in  the  same  ratio  as  that  of  their  English  rivals. 

During  the  last  twenty  years  a  great  improvement  has 
taken  place  in  the  style  of  boxes  and  labels  in  which 
the  pens  are  packed.  Formerly  (with  the  exception  of 
the  goods  issued  by  Gillott  and  Sommerville)  most  of 
the  pens  were  sold  in  boxes  of  the  plainest  description; 
now  the  covers  or  labels  are  printed  in  a  number  of 
colors  from  elaborate  designs,  by  first-class  artists,  and 
in  some  cases  the  boxes  are  ornamented  with  well-exe- 
cuted portraits  of  royal,  political,  literary,  or  artistic 
celebrities.  There  are  many  peculiarities  connected  with 
the  public  taste  as  manifested  in  the  demand  for  pens. 
The  Germans  use  a  greater  variety  of  patterns  than  any 


36  THE  STOR  Y  OF  THE 

other  nation.  The  English  taste  is  more  restricted,  and 
is  generally  confined  to  articles  of  the  plainer  shapes. 
Autocratic  Russia  and  democratic  America  make  use  of 
the  fewest  patterns.  By  a  regulation  of  the  Imperial 
Government,  pens  in  boxes,  bearing  portraits  of  the  Rus- 
sian royal  family  are  prevented  from  entering  the  coun- 
try, and  in  America  public  taste  does  not  favor  a  demand 
for  portrait  boxes.  By  a  law  which  came  into  operation 
the  ist  of  January,  1886,  no  pens  can  be  imported  into 
Russia  bearing  the  name  of  a  Russian  firm.  The  prob- 
able purpose  of  this  law  was  to  encourage  the  establish- 
ment of  a  Russian  manufactory.  At  present  there  are 
no  pen  works  in  Russia.  An  attempt  was  made  in  Mos- 
cow, in  1876-8,  to  manufacture  steel  pens,  but  the  experi- 
ment proved  a  failure.  The  Germans  and  French  are 
the  largest  buyers  of  first-class  pens,  but  the  Italians  are 
content  with  articles  of  the  commonest  character.  The 
chief  demand  for  three-pointed  pens  comes  from  Spain. 
At  present  the  demand  for  steel  pens  is  chiefly  confined 
to  European  nations  and  their  descendants.  The  great 
Asiatic  nations  still  write  with  pens  made  from  reeds,  or 
camel-hair  pencils.  A  few  of  the  natives  of  India  and 
Japan,  and  some  of  the  subjects  of  the  Sultan  and 
Khedive  are  beginning  to  make  use  of  steel  pens  adapted 
to  the  peculiarities  of  their  writing.  From  this  it  would 
appear  that  the  possibilities  of  the  progress  of  the  trade 
in  the  future  are  very  favorable  ;  but  in  the  meantime 
its  productions  are  scattered  over  the  globe,  and  even 
in  some  of  the  darkest  corners  of  the  earth  pioneers  of 
civilization  are  to  be  found  transcribing  the  results  of 
their  experience  with  the  aid  of  that  great  factor  of 
nineteenth-century  progress — an  English  Steel  Pen. 


THE  MANUFACTURING  PROCESSES 
OF    STEEL    PENS. 


THE  steel  from  which  the  greater  part  of  the  metallic 
pens  are  manufactured  comes  from  Sheffield.  Notwith- 
standing the  many  names  given  by  the  venders  of  steel 
pens  to  the  material  from  which  they  are  manufactured 
there  are  but  two  sorts — good  and  bad — and  therefore 
Peruvian,  Damascus,  Amalgam,  and  Silver  Steel  are 
but  fancy  names.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  where  a  number 
of  prefixes  are  used  to,describe  the  quality  of  an  article 
it  is  generally  found  to  have  no  claim  to  any  of  them. 

The  raw  material  is  received  from  Sheffield  in  sheets 
six  feet  in  length,  one  foot  five  inches  in  width,  and  23 
or  26  Birmingham  wire-gauge  in  thickness.  The  first 
operation  is  the  cutting  of  these  sheets  into  strips  of  con- 
venient width.  They  are  then  packed  in  an  oblong  iron 
box,  placed  with  the  open  top  downward  in  another  box 
of  the  same  material,  and  the  interstices  are  filled  up 
with  a  composition  to  exclude  the  air.  The  boxes  are 
placed  in  a  muffle,  where  they  remain  until  they  have 
gradually  attained  a  dull  red  heat,  and  the  muffle  is  al- 
lowed to  gradually  cool,  or  else  the  boxes  are  placed  in 
a  cooling  chamber.  When  the  boxes  have  been  reduced 
to  a  temperature  which  will  admit  of  their  being  handled, 
the  contents  (technically  called  a  charge)  are  emptied 
out.  Now,  it  will  be  found  that  the  strips  of  steel  are 


38  THE  MANUFACTURING  PROCESSES 

covered  with  bits  of  small  scale,  sticking  to  them  like 
a  loose  skin,  and  if  this  were  not  removed  before  the 
next  process  —  rolling  —  the  steel,  instead  of  being  per- 

fectly smooth,  would 
be  marked  with  a  num- 
ber of  indentations, 
rendering  it  very  un- 
sightly. In  order  to 
get  rid  of  this  excres- 
cence, the  strips  are 
immersed  in  a  bath 
of  diluted  sulphuric 
acid,  which  loosens 
the  scale,  and  are  then 
placed  in  wood  barrels 

'tO 


ROLLING   THE  STEEL. 

bles    and    water   are 

added.  The  barrels  are  kept  revolving  until  the  whole 
of  the  scaly  substance  has  been  removed  and  the  strips 
have  assumed  a  silver-gray  appearance.  The  steel  is 
now  ready  for  manipulation  in  the  rolling  mill,  where 
it  is  passed  between  successive  pairs  of  rolls  until  it  has 
been  reduced  to  the  required  gauge,  and  this  operation 
has  to  be  performed  with  such  nicety  that  a  variation  of 
one  thousand  part  of  an  inch  in  the  thickness  of  the 
strip  would  make  such  an  alteration  in  the  flexibility  of 
the  pens  made  from  it  as  to  cause  considerable  dissatis- 
faction to  the  purchasers  of  the  article. 

The  steel  on  leaving  the  mill  is  conveyed  to  the  gaug- 
ing room,  and  it  will  be  found  to  have  increased  to  three 
times  its  original  length,  and  now  appears  with  a  bright 
surface.  Hitherto  the  operations  have  been  conducted 


OF  STEEL  PENS. 


39 


by  men  and  boys  ;  but  now,  in  the  course  of  manu- 
facture, the  pens  will  enter  on  a  series  of  processes  in 
which  the  quick  and  delicate  fingers  of  women  and  girls 
play  an  important  part.  The  strips  of  steel  are  now 
given  out  to  the  cutters.  The  Toolmaker,  who,  as  a 
rule,  both  makes  and  sets  the  tools,  has  placed  in  what 
is  known  as  a  bolster  a  die,  having  a  hole  perforated 
through-  it  of  the  exact  shape  of  the  blank  to  be  cut ; 
and  attached  to  the  bottom  of  the  screwed  bolt  of  the 
press  is  a  punch,  also  bearing  the  exact  shape  of  the 


blank.  The  girl  with  her  left  hand  introduces  one  of 
the  strips  of  steel  at  the  back  of  the  press,  and,  pulling 
the  handle  toward  her  with  the  right  hand,  the  screw 


4°  THE  MANUFACTURING  PROCESSES 

descends,  driving  the  punch  into  the  bed,  and  in  so 
doing  has  perforated  the  strip  of  steel  with  a  scissors-like 
cut,  making  a  blank  which  falls  through  the  opening  in 
the  die  into  a  drawer  below.  Now,  with  her  left  hand 
she  pulls  the  strip  toward  her  until  it  is  stopped  by  a 
little  projection  called  a  guide ;  and  again  the  right 
hand  moves  the  handle,  the  screw  descends,  and  another 
blank  is  cut.  The  operation  is  continued  until  the  whole 
of  one  side  of  the  strip  is  perforated  ;  it  is  then  re- 
versed and  the  other  side  treated  in  a  similar  way.  If 
you  were  to  hold  up  the  strip  thus  manipulated — now 
called  scrap — you  would  find  that  in  some  particular 
part  the  perforations  approach  so  nearly  to  each  other 
as  to  form  a  slight  bar,  which  breaks  easily  between  the 
thumb  and  finger.  This  is  rendered  necessary  from  the 
fact  that  steel  scrap  is  worth  only  one-fifth  of  the  value 
of  the  raw  material,  and,  as  under  the  most  favorable 
conditions,  the  scrap  averages  one-third  the  original 
weight  given  out  for  cutting,  it  behooves  the  manufact- 
urer to  reduce  the  scrap  as  much  as  practicable.  If 
these  blanks  are  examined,  a  small  V-shaped  indentation, 
looking  like  a  defect,  will  be  found  upon  the  upper  edge 
of  that  part  inserted  in  the  holder.  This  small  mark 
plays  an  important  part  in  the  succeeding  processes.  To 
a  casual  observer  there  does  not  appear  much  difference 
between  the  two  sides  of  the  blank  ;  but,  however  well 
the  tools  are  made,  that  side  of  the  blank  which  is  up- 
permost in  cutting  out  will  be  rougher  than  the  under 
side.  This  mark  enables  the  operator  to  distinguish  at 
a  glance  the  smooth  side,  and  by  always  keeping  the 
rough  side  upward  the  burr  is  polished  off  in  a  later 
process.  The  blanks  are  now  ready  to  be  passed  to  the 


OF  STEEL  PENS. 


next  process — marking.  This  operation  is  performed 
by  a  female,  with  the  aid  of  a  stamp.  The  precise  mark 
required  is  cut  upon  a  piece  of  steel,  and,  being  placed 
in  the  hammer  of  the  stamp,  the  girl  puts  her  right  foot 
into  a  stirrup  attached  to  a  rope,  which  is  passed  round 
a  pulley,  and,  pressing  downward,  causes  the  hammer  .to 


ascend.  Taking  a  handful  of  blanks  with  her  left  hand, 
by  a  dexterous  motion  she  makes  a  little  train  of  them  be- 
tween the  thumb  and  finger  in  parallel  order,  presenting 
the  first  in  the  most  ready  position  to  be  passed  to  the 
other  hand.  The  right  hand  is  brought  toward  the 
left,  and,  taking  a  blank,  places  it  with  the  point  toward 
the  worker  in  a  guide  upon  the  bed  of  the  stamp,  then 


THE  MANUFACTURING  PROCESSES 


by  suddenly  letting  the  hammer  descend  a  blow  is  struck 
upon  the  blank,  which  gives  an  impression  of  the  name 
cut  upon  the  punch.  The  quick  fingers  of  the  operator 
pass  backward  and  forward  with  such  rapidity  that  a 

skillful  girl  will  mark 
from  two  hundred  to 
two  hundred  and  fifty 
gross  per  day.  If  the 
mark  required  is  unu- 
sually large,  the  mark- 
ing process  is  deferred 
until  after  the  pen  has 
been  pierced,  in  order 
that  the  blank  may  be 
annealed  (or  softened), 
which  takes  the  impres- 
sion more  readily  than 
the  hard  steel. 

Now,  in  order  to  make  a  metallic  pen  suitable  for  writ- 
ing it  is  necessary  to  consider  some  means  of  producing 
elasticity,  and  also  to  devise  some  method  by  which  the 
smooth  steel  shall  cause  the  ink  to  attach  itself  to  the 
pen.  This  is  brought  about  by  the  next  process— -pierc- 
ing. In  this  operation  the  tools  are  of  a  very  delicate 
character,  and  as  the  center  pierce  (the  aperture  in  which 
the  slit  terminates)  is  frequently  of  an  ornamental  design 
the  tools,  being  small,  have  to  be  made  with  great  pre- 
cision. The  piercing  punch  and  bed  having  been  fixed 
in  a  screw  press,  and  an  ingenious  arrangement  of  guides 
fastened  thereto,  the  girl  selects  a  blank  from  a  tray  on 
her  left  hand,  and,  placing  it  in  its  proper  position  by  the 
aid  of  the  guides,  pushes  the  fly  of  the  press  from  her, 


OF  STEEL  PENS. 


43 


the  screw  descends,  driving  the  punch  into  the  bed,  and 
the  operation  of  piercing  is  completed. 

The  blanks  are  still  moderately  hard,  and  before  they 
can  be  made  to  take  the  shape  of  a  pen  it  is  necessary 
that  they  should  be  softened,  which  is  effected  by  the 
process  called  annealing.  The  blanks  having  been  freed 
from  the  dust  ard  grease  that  has  become  attached  to 
them  are  carefully  placed  in  round  iron  pots,  which  are 
again  inclosed  in  larger  ones  and  covered  over  with 
charcoal  dust  to  prevent  the  entrance  of  gases,  and  put 
into  the  muffle,  heated  to  a  dull  red,  and  then  allowed  to 
cool. 

The  blanks  are  now  soft  and  pliable,  readily  taking  the 
various  shapes  into  which  pens  are  made  by  the  next 
process,  called  raising. 
This  operation  is  per- 
formed by  the  aid  of 
a  punch  and  die  fitted 
into  a  screw -press. 
The  punch  is  fitted  in- 
to a  contrivance  called 
a  false  nose,  fixed  in 
the  bottom  of  the  screw 
of  the  press  ;  and  the 
die  or  bed  is  placed 
in  a  cylindrical  piece 
of  steel  (called  a  bol- 

V  RAISING   OR   SHAPING. 

ster)  with  a  groove  cut 

for  the  reception  of  the  die,  the  bolster  being  fastened 
to  the  bottom  of  the  press  by  a  screw  underneath. 
The  punch  and  die  being  fixed  so  as  to  exactly  fit  each 
other,  the  toolmaker  places  a  small  piece  of  tissue  paper 


44  THE  MANUFACTURING  PROCESSES 

between  them,  takes  an  impression,  examines  it,  and 
proceeds  to  rectify  any  inequality  in  the  pressure,  so  as 
to  insure  perfection  in  the  shape.  This  being  accom- 
plished, the  toolmaker 
fixes  four  pieces  of 
steel  (called  guides)  to 
the  bolster  in  such  po- 
sitions that  the  oper- 
ator is  enabled  to  slide 
the  blank  into  the  bed, 
where  it  is  held  by  the 
guides  till  the  punch 
descends,  forces  the 
blank  into  the  bed,  and 
gives  the  pen  its  shape. 
The  article  is  now  nar- 

HARDENING.  .  .^  . 

rower  than  it  was  in  its 

blank  form,  and  the  girl  pushes  it  through  the  tools  with 
a  small  stick  held  in  the  hand  with  which  she  works  the 
press  handle,  while  with  the  other  hand  she  places  another 
blank  in  its  position  in  the  bed. 

The  pen  is  now  shaped  or  raised,  but  it  is  still  soft, 
and  consequently  another  process  is  necessitated — hard- 
ening. This  is  effected  by  placing  the  pens  in  thin  layers 
in  round  pans  with  lids.  They  are  placed  in  the  muffle 
for  a  period  varying  from  twenty  to  thirty  minutes,  dur- 
ing which  time  they  have  acquired  a  bright  red  heat.  The 
workman  then  withdraws  them  and  empties  the  contents 
into  a  large  bucket  immersed  in  a  tank  of  oil.  The 
bucket  is  perforated  at  the  bottom,  and  being  elevated, 
the  oil  drains  off.  The  pens  are  next  placed  in  a  per- 
forated cylinder,  which,  being  set  in  motion,  revolves  and 


OF  STEEL  PENS. 


45 


drains  off  the  remainder  of  the  oil.  The  pens  are  still 
greasy,  and  as  brittle  as  glass  ;  and  in  order  to  free  them 
from  the  grease  they  are  again  placed  in  perforated 
buckets  and  immersed  in  a  tank  of  boiling  soda  water. 
After  they  are  freed  from  the  grease  the  pens  are  put 
into  an  iron  cylinder,  which  is  kept  revolving  over  a  char- 
coal fire  until  they  are  softened  or  tempered  down  to  the 
special  degree  required.  In  this  process  the  workman  is 
guided  by  the  color,  which  indicates  the  varying  tem- 
perature of  the  metal  of  which  the  articles  are  made. 
Brittleness  has  given  place  to  pliability,  but  the  pens  are 
black  in  color  and  scratch  at  the  point,  and  to  remedy 
this  defect  they  are  subjected  to  the  next  process — 
scouring.  In  order  to  do  this  the  pens  are  dipped  in  a 
bath  of  diluted  sulphuric  acid — called  pickle — which  frees 
the  articles  from  any  ex- 
traneous substances  they 
may  have  acquired  in 
the  hardening  and  tem- 
pering processes.  This 
requires  to  be  done  with 
great  care,  or  the  acid 
would  injure  the  steel. 
The  pens  are  then  placed 
in  iron  barrels  with  a 
quantity  of  water  and 
small  pebbly-looking 
material.  This  latter 

SCOURING   OR    BARRELING. 

material  is  composed  of 

annealing  pots  broken  and  ground  fine  enough  to  pass 
readily  through  a  fine  riddle.  The  barrel  being  set  in 
motion,  the  pens  are  scoured  for  periods  varying  from 


THE  MANUFACTURING  PROCESSES 


five  to  eight  hours,  and  are  placed  again  in  barrels  with 
dry  pot  for  about  the  same  period,  after  which  they  are 
put  into  other  barrels  together  with  a  quantity  of  dry 
sawdust.  On  being  taken 'out  of  these  barrels  the  body 

of  the  pen  has  acquired 
a  bright  silver  color, 
and  the  point  has  been 
rounded. 

The  article  has  now 
the  shape  and  appear- 
ance of  a  finished  pen, 
and  yet  it  possesses 
none  of  its  character- 
istics, and,  if  tried,  will 
be  found  to  have  no 
more  action  than  a 
lead  pencil,  as  it  is  de- 
ficient in  that  impor- 
tant part  of  a  writing  instrument — the  slit.  Before  being 
slit  the  pen  is  ground  between  the  centre  pierce  and  the 
point.  This  process  is  performed  by  girls,  with  the  aid 
of  what  is  called  a  "  bob  "  or  "  glazer."  The  "  bob  "  is  a 
circular  piece  of  alder  wood  about  ten  and  a  half  inches 
in  diameter  and  half  an  inch  in  width.  Round  this  a 
piece  of  leather  is  stretched  and  dressed  with  emery. 
A  spindle  is  driven  through  the  centre,  and  the  two  ends 
placed  in  sockets.  The  "  bob  "  is  set  in  motion  by  means 
of  a  leather  band,  and  the  girl  holding  a  pen  firmly,  with 
a  light  touch  grinds  off  a  portion  of  the  surface. 

This  operation  being  completed,  the  last  and  most 
important  mechanical  operation  has  to  be  performed — 
slitting.  The  tools  with  which  this  process  is  effected 


GRINDING. 


OF  STEEL  PENS. 


47 


are  two  oblong  pieces  of  steel  about  an  inch  and  a 
half  long,  three-eighths  of  an  inch  thick,  and  an  inch 
and  a  quarter  wide.  These  are  called  the  cutters,  and 
upon  the  preparation  and  setting  of  these  the  successful 
issue  of  the  proc- 
ess depends.  The 
edges  of  these 
cutters  are  equal 
in  delicacy  to  the 
cutting  edge  of 
a  razor,  but  the 
shape  is  more 
suggestive  of  a 
portion  cut  from 
the  thickest  part 
of  a  large  pair  of 
shears.  The  cut- 
ter being  fixed 
in  the  press,  a 
pair  of  guides 
are  screwed  on 
either  side,  and  a 
small  tool  called 
a  table,  or  rest, 
being  attached  to 
the  contrivance 
called  a  bolster, 
which  holds  the 
bottom  cutter,  the  operator  takes  a  pen,  places  it  on  the 
table,  pushes  the  point  up  toward  the  guide,  pulls  the 
handle,  the  upper  cutter  descends,  meets  the  lower  one, 
and  the  process  of  slitting  is  completed. 


48  TIfE  MANUFACTURING  PROCESSES 

Now,  although  this  operation  completes  the  mechan- 
ical processes  of  pen  making,  the  article  is  by  no  means 
finished.  If  you  examine  the  pen  now  you  will  find  that 
the  outer  edge  of  each  point  is  smooth,  while  the  inside 
edges  which  have  just  been  made  by  the  slit  are  sharp 
and  scratch.  To  remove  this  defect  the  operation  of 
"  barreling  "  has  to  be  again  resorted  to.  The  pens  are 
again  placed  in  the  iron  barrels  with  pounded  pot,  kept 
revolving  from  five  to  six  hours,  and  finally  polished  in 
sawdust. 

The  pens  are  now  of  a  bright  silver-steel  color  and 
perfectly  smooth,  but  as  they  are  required  in  various 
tints,  they  are  colored  and  afterward  varnished  to  pre- 
vent rust.  To  accomplish  the  first  of  these  results  the 
articles  are  placed  in  a  copper  or  iron  cylinder  and  kept 
revolving  over  a  coke  fire  until  the  requisite  tint  is  ob- 
tained, the  color  depending  upon  the  temperature  of  the 
cylinder.  If  the  pens  are  intended  to  be  lacquered  they 
are  placed  in  a  solution  of  shellac  dissolved  in  methyl- 
ated spirits.  The  spirit  is  drained  off,  and  the  pens  are 
placed  in  wire  cylinders  and  kept  revolving  until  the 
action  of  the  air  dries  the  lacquer.  They  are  then  scat- 
tered upon  iron  trays,  inserted  in  an  oven,  and  the  heat 
diffuses  the  lacquer  equally  over  the  surface  of  the  pens, 
so  that  when  they  have  cooled  down  they  have  a  glossy 
appearance,  which  gives  to  them  an  air  of  finish  and 
prevents  rust. 

The  pen  is  now  finished  as  far  as  manufacturing 
processes  are  concerned,  yet  before  it  can  be  offered 
to  the  public  it  has  to  undergo  a  rigid  examination 
called  "looking  over."  This  is  performed  by  trained 
girls,  and  when  the  defective  ones  have  been  sorted 


OF  STEEL  PENS.  49 


out  the  good  pens  are  sent  to  the  finished  warehouse 
to  be  put  up  into  boxes.  These  boxes  are  of  various 
descriptions,  adapted  to  suit  the  markets  for  which  they 
are  intended.  In  many  instances  the  labels  which  form 
the  covers  of  the  boxes  are  elaborately  printed  from  first- 
class  designs,  and  some  of  them  have  highly-finished 
steel  engravings  of  royal  personages  and  celebrities  in 
the  scientific,  literary,  musical,  and  political  world.  The 
quantities  contained  in  these  boxes  vary  with  the  coun- 
tries for  which  they  are  intended  ;  for  the  manufactur- 
ers study  the  wants  of  their  customers,  and  do  not  offer 
articles  counted  in  dozens  to  people  who  reckon  by  tens. 
We  have  now  traced  the  manufacture  of  this  little 
article  from  its  beginning  as  a  plain  piece  of  steel 
through  all  its  stages  until  it  has  developed  into  that 
indispensable  requisite  of  daily  life — a  pen. 


SOME    PROCESSES    IN    PEN    MAKING. 


MARKING.         PIERCING.          EMBOSSING.          RAISING.  GRINDING.          SLITTING. 


HISTORY   OF   THE  PERRYIAN  PEN 
WORKS. 


THE  firm  of  Messrs.  Perry  &  Co.,  London,  was  founded 
in  the  year  1824  by  Mr.  James  Perry,  who  carried  on 
business  originally  in  Manchester,  then  in  London.  Mr. 
James  Perry  died  in  the  year  1843.  Mr.  Stephen  Perry, 
who  conducted  the  business  afterward  in  partnership 
with  Mr.  Hayes  and  others,  died  in  the  year  1873, 
and  was  succeeded  by  his  sons,  Messrs.  Joseph  John 
and  Lewis  Henry  Perry.  The  firm  of  Perry  &  Co.  was 
known  all  over  Europe  as  the  house  which  first  intro- 
duced to  the  commercial  world  steel  pens  of  a  superior 
quality,  and  in  many  countries  steel  pens  are  now  known 
under  the  general  denomination  of  " Perry  pens."  The 
first  pens  were  manufactured  by  Perry  &  Co.  in  London, 
principally  from  flattened  or  ribbon  steel  wire,  and  in 
the  year  1828  Mr.  Josiah,  afterward  Sir  Josiah,  Mason, 
then  a  manufacturer  of  steel  split  rings,  produced  steel 
pens  so  much  superior  to  the  pens  made  up  to  that 
period  that  Messrs.  Perry  &  Co.  entered  into  contracts 
with  him  for  the  sole  supply  of  all  the  pens  they  might 
require  ;  this  connection  continued  up  to  the  time  of  the 
formation  of  this  company.  In  the  meantime,  Messrs. 
Perry  &  Co.  had  also  introduced  the  sale  of  elastic  bands 
and  pencil  cases ;  the  production  of  the  latter  was  con- 
fided to  Mr.  W.  E.  Wiley,  who,  in  the  year  1850,  began 


5  2  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  THE 

the  manufacture  first  of  gold  pens,  afterward  of  pencil 
cases.  Messrs.  Perry  &  Co.  also  contracted  with  Mr. 
Wiley  for  the  purchase  of  all  the  pencil  cases  they  might 
dispose  of,  and  thus  Mr.  Wiley's  works  assumed  gigantic 
proportions.  Mr.  Alfred  Sommerville,  who  had  been 
connected  with  the  steel-pen  trade  since  its  infancy, 


THE    LATE   SIR   JOSIAH    MASON. 

established  the  firm  of  A.  Sommerville  &  Co.  in  the  year 
1851.  Although  he,  in  the  year  1857,  began  manufact- 
uring steel  pens  in  connection  with  a  partner,  he  like- 
wise contracted  with  Mr.  Josiah  Mason  for  a  superior 
class  of  steel  pens,  principally  intended  for  the  Conti- 


PERRYIAN  PEN  WORKS,  53 

nental  markets,  and  many  of  which  were  either  his  own 
invention  or  suggested  by  him.  Mr.  Sommerville  desir- 
ing to  retire  from  business,  Sir  Josiah  Mason  purchased 
his  trade  in  the  year  1870,  but  continued  to  carry  it  on 
under  the  old  style  of  A.  Sommerville  &  Co.  These 
four  businesses  being  so  intimately  connected  and  de- 
pendent upon  each  other,  some  gentlemen  of  eminence 
in  the  manufacturing  town  of  Birmingham  decided,  in 
conjunction  with  some  of  the  leading  proprietors,  to 
establish  a  limited  company,  for  the  purpose  of  uniting 
and  amalgamating  inseparably  the  various  establishments, 
and  thus  the  company  of  "Perry  6°  Co.,  Limited"  was 
formed. 

On  the  spot  forming  the  principal  entrance  to  the 
works,  Mr.  Samuel  Harrison,  in  the  year  1778,  founded 
a  manufactory  in  which  he  carried  on  his  invention  of 
steel  split  rings  ;  but  Mr.  Harrison,  who  was  an  ingenious 
mechanic,  also  manufactured  mathematical  instruments, 
some  of  which  were  used  by  Dr.  Priestley  in  his  re- 
searches, and  on  one  occasion  he  made  a  steel  pen  for 
Dr.  Priestley,  probably  the  first  steel  pen  ever  produced. 
Mr.  Josiah  Mason  succeeded  to  the  business  of  Mr.  Har- 
rison in  1823,  and  in  1828  began  the  manufacture  of 
steel  pens.  For  several  years  he  gave  his  whole  atten- 
tion to  improvements  in  the  manufacture  of  steel  pens, 
and  Mr.  Perry  took  out  several  most  important  patents 
for  the  improvement  of  steel  pens,  many  of  which  have 
not  been  surpassed  in  ingenuity  or  in  utility,  and  the 
principal  among  them,  the  so-called  "  double  patent,"  is 
universally  applied  by  the  pen  trade  to  a  great  number 
of  pens  to  this  very  day.  In  1842  Mr.  Mason's  atten- 
tion was  absorbed  by  the  process  of  electro-plating  and 


54 


HISTORY  OF  THE 


gilding,  at  that  time  invented  and  carried  on  by  Mr.  Elk- 
ington,  in  partnership  with  whom  he  founded  the  great 
firm  of  Elkington,  Mason  &  Co.  For  some  years  the 
production  of  pens  flagged,  but  in  1852  a  nephew  of  Sir 
Josiah  Mason,  Mr.  Isaac  Smith  (deceased  in  1868),  gave 
a  new  stimulus  to  the  manufacture  of  pens,  and  from  that 
time  the  production  gradually  increased  until  it  assumed 
its  present  proportions.  The  manufactory  now  covers 
nearly  two  acres  ;  it  occupies  a  whole  square  and  fronts 
four  streets.  In  the  building  fronting  Lancaster  Street 


THE    BIRMINGHAM    FACTORY. 


(five  stories  high)  the  offices,  warehouses  and  store- 
rooms of  finished  goods  are  distributed.  The  under- 
ground floor  forms  a  huge  machine  shop,  in  which  all  the 
presses,  rolls,  and  general  iron  and  machine  work  em- 
ployed throughout  the  manufactory  are  produced  by 
skillful  mechanics.  Behind  the  front  building  there  are 
several  courtyards  and  quadrangles,  in  the  largest  of 
which  are  placed  in  a  row  five  double-flue  boilers,  each 
20  feet  long  by  7  feet  diameter,  working  at  a  pressure  of 


PERRYIAN  PEN  WORKS. 


55 


55  Ib.  to  the  square  inch,  supplying  the  steam  power 
both  for  propelling  the  steam  engines  and  for  heating  the 
manufactory.  In  the  rolling  mill,  measuring  64  by  38 
feet,  three  double-cylinder  engines,  working  up  to  293 
indicated  horse 
power,  give  mo- 
tion to  1 8  pairs 
of  rolls,  rolling 
between  four  to 
six  tons  of  steel 
per  week.  The 
largest  work- 
shops are  the  slit- 
ting and  grinding 
rooms,  64  by  38 
feet,  the  latter  24 
feet  high.  In  the 
slitting  room  90 
girls  apply  the 
last  mechanical 
process  to  the 
manufacture  of 
steel  pens,  in 
slitting  them  by 
presses  of  ingeni- 
ous construction. 
In  the  grinding 
room  more  than 
1 60  girls  are  busily  employed  cross  and  straight  grinding 
steel  pens  on  wood  cylinders  covered  with  emery.  The 
room  in  which  the  finished  pens  are  placed  in  boxes 
measures  54  by  30  feet,  and  in  it  alone  are  employed 


56  HISTORY  OF  THE 

more  than  50  girls  boxing  and  labeling  steel  pens,  or 
fitting  penholder  tips  on  handles  of  various  materials, 
principally  of  cedar.  In  that  part  of  the  building  having 
a  frontage  on  Corporation  Street  there  is  a  dining  room 
86  feet  6  inches  long  by  68  feet  wide,  fitted  up  with 
tables  to  accommodate  600  people.  Here  the  employes 
are  served  with  a  warm  dinner  at  prices  varying  from 
2d.  to  6d.  At  one  end  of  the  room  there  is  a  stage, 
where  dramatic  entertainments  and  concerts  are  given 
in  the  winter  season  by  the  workpeople.  At  the  other 
end  there  is  a  library,  in  a  glazed  partition,  containing 
about  2,000  volumes  of  standard  works.  These  books 
are  issued  to  the  hands  employed  by  the  firm  free.  One 
of  the  important  features  of  this  manufactory  is  the  em- 
ployment of  muffles  heated  by  gas  produced  from  Sie- 
mens's  gas  generators.  These  muffles  allow  the  heat  to 
be  regulated  to  a  nicety,  and  enable  the  company  to 
carry  on  the  process  of  annealing  and  hardening  to  very 
great  perfection. 

The  manufacture  of  steel  pens  employs  in  all  about 
900  workpeople,  the  weekly  production  is  45,000  gross, 
which  quantity  will  shortly  be  increased  to  50,000  gross, 
per  week.  Six  smaller  steam  engines  are  employed  in- 
dependently of  those  already  mentioned  in  various  parts 
of  the  works.  The  manufacture  of  penholder  sticks  is 
carried  on  in  two  separate  buildings.  Penholder  sticks 
were  produced  by  Mr.  Mason  as  far  back  as  1835,  but 
their  manufacture  had  lapsed  ;  it  was  only  resumed  eight 
years  ago,  since  which  time,  by  new  and  ingenious  ma- 
chinery, principally  the  inventions  of  Mr.  W.  E.  Wiley, 
the  managing  director,  it  has  assumed  proportions  of 
great  magnitude. 


PERRYIAN  PEN  WORKS.  57 

The  pencil  case  and  solitaire  works  carried  on  by  Mr. 
Wiley,  first  alone,  and  then  in  co-partnership  with  his  son 
in  Graham  Street,  have  now  been  transferred  to  Lan- 
caster Street. 

Pencil  cases,  first  introduced  by  Messrs.  Mordan  & 
Lund,  in  London,  have  undergone  various  changes  and 


THE   LATE   W.  S.  PERRY. 

improvements,  the  principal  of  which  was  a  lead  holder 
passing  through  the  point  of  the  pencil  case,  which  was 
slit  for  that  purpose.  This  invention  was  patented  by 
Mr.  Wiley  in  the  year  1857,  and  created  a  complete  revo- 
lution in  the  pencil-case  trade,  as  it  enabled  the  manu- 


5  8  HISTORY  OF  THE 

facturers  to  use  a  thicker  and  longer  lead,  which  could 
be  propelled  and  withdrawn  at  will  and  would  last  in 
daily  use  more  than  six  months.  This  patented  mechan- 
ism was  introduced  into  cases  made  from  hard  wood, 
bone  and  ivory,  but  since  the  year  1868  a  composition 
called  aluminium  gold,  so  resembling  gold  that  it  can- 
not be  distinguished  from  it,  and  resisting  the  effects  of 
oxidation,  consequently  free  from  tarnish,  made  a  fur- 
ther revolution  in  the  pencil-case  trade,  enabling  the 
million  to  possess  an  elegant  and  highly-wrought  pencil 
case  at  a  very  moderate  price.  Messrs.  Perry  &  Co.,  of 
London,  gave  to  this  manufacture  publicity  in  every  part 
of  Europe,  and  the  quantities  produced  and  sold  are 
incredible. 

In  1874  a  new  patent  was  added  to  the  many  inven- 
tions for  which  this  establishment  was  famous.  Its  pur- 
pose was  to  produce  a  solitaire  stud  made  in  two  parts, 
so  as  to  enable  its  ready  application  without  the  trouble 
of  passing  a  button  of  large  diameter  through  a  small 
buttonhole.  A  self-acting  steel  spring  is  fixed  in  the 
upper  part  of  the  stud,  and  snaps  as  soon  as  inserted 
into  the  lower  part,  where  a  slight  pressure  on  two  pro- 
jections releases  the  springs  and  permits  the  separation 
of  the  two  parts.  These  solitaires  are  manufactured  of 
gold,  silver,  and  a  variety  of  other  metals,  the  principal 
of  which  is  gold  plate.  There  are  now  more  than  five 
hundred  patterns  in  existence,  and  this  useful  manufact- 
ure grows  daily  in  extension.  Perry  &  Co.'s  paper 
binders,  an  article  now  universally  used  for  fastening 
together  loose  papers,  cloth  patterns,  etc.,  are  produced 
in  infinite  styles  and  sizes,  principally  by  self-acting 
machinery. 


PERR  YIAN  PEN  WORKS. 


59 


The_totaLnumber  of  workpeople  employed  in  the  com- 
pany's manufactories  exceeds  1,300. 

The  business  of  Perry  &  Co.  was  carried  on  for  more 
than  forty  years  at  37  Red  Lion  Square,  London,  but  the 
increase  of  business  and  the  reconstruction  of  London 
required  that  a  more  central  position  should  be  found  for 
the  development  of  the  commercial  department  of  the 
company.  Large  and  handsome  warehouses  having  been 
constructed  on  the  Holborn  Viaduct,  the  company  trans- 
ferred their  London  depot  to  a  building  five  stories  high 
on  the  side  fronting  the  Holborn  Viaduct  and  eight 
stories  high  at  the 
back.  In  this  im- 
mense warehouse 
are  stored  not  only 
the  produce  of  the 
manufactories  of 
this  company,  but 
also  special  articles 
for  which  this  firm 
has  been  famous  for 
the  last  thirty  years, 
principally  the  elastic  or  endless  bands,  patented  by  Mr. 
Daft  and  Mr.  Stephen  Perry,  and  originally  introduced 
by  Perry  &  Co.  in  conjunction  with  Mclntosh  &  Co., 
afterward  in  conjunction  with  Warne  &  Co.  Perry's 
Royal  Aromatic  Bands  are  now  an  indispensable  article, 
and  may  be  procured  in  every  city  of  the  world.  Every 
fancy  article  required  by  stationers  can  be  found  in  these 
vast  stores.  An  illustrated  price  current  which  appears 
monthly,  and  which  numbers  more  than  120  pages,  gives 
a  fair  idea  of  the  variety  of  articles  of  which  samples  and 


LONDON    HOUSE,   HOLBORN   VIADUCT. 


60  THE  PERRYIAN  PEN  WORKS. 

stock  can  be  found  ready  for  daily  delivery.  The  in- 
crease of  business  has  been  so  rapid  that  the  company 
found  it  necessary  to  lease  the  adjoining  premises,  which 
is  stored  with  some  of  the  two  thousand  articles  forming 
the  staple  trade  of  the  London  depot,  and  the  principal 
of  which  are  the  following :  American  Letter  Files,  Clips 
(now  manufactured  in  Lancaster  Street),  Marking  and 
other  Inks,  Aromatic  Bands,  Audascript  Pens,  Bostonite 
Goods,  Cigar  Lighters,  Copying  Ink  and  Copying  Ink 
Powder,  Copying  Ink  Pencils,  Copying  Presses,  Corru- 
gated Imperial  Bands,  Essence  of  Ink,  Grease  Extractors, 
India  Rubber  for  Erasing,  Ink  and  Pencil  Erasers,  Ink 
Extractors,  Patent  and  other  Inkstands  in  every  variety, 
Key  Rings,  Letter  Clips,  Letter  Files,  Metallic  Books, 
Paper  Binders,  Pencil  Point  Protectors,  Pencils  and 
Pencil  Cases,  Penholders,  Pen  Knives,  Pen  Racks,  Gold 
Pens,  Portfolios,  Presses,  Scotch  Tartan  Fancy  Goods, 
Solitaires  or  Sleeve  Links,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

This  establishment  is  under  the  exclusive  management 
of  Mr.  Joseph  J.  Perry,  managing  director. 


[  The  illustrations  in  this  work  are  engraved  from  pen- 
and-ink  sketches  executed  by  Walter  Langley  with  a  Perry  s 
No.  25  pen.~\ 


PERRY    &    COMPANY'S 

CARBONIZED 

STEEL  PENS 

'    THE  LEADING  PATTERNS  FOR  CORRESPONDENTS, 
ACCOUNTANTS   AND   SCHOOLS. 


PER  GROSS. 


17,   $0.50 


102,      .50 


SCHOOL 

VIADUCT 

ELASTIC 

CALIGRAPHIC 

HIGHLAND 

GLADSTONE 


BANK 

61 


PERRY   &    COMPANY'S    CARBONIZED    STEEL    PENS. 


PER  GROSS. 


107,  $0.50 

117,  .75 

127,  .85 

135,  .60 

137,  .50 

151,  1.40 

338,  .75 

427,  .60 

753,  .75 


831,      .70 
62 


RIB  CALIGRAPHIC 
SEMINARY 
ELASTIC 


Ill" 


i"  RAVEN  BLACK 


THE  FALCON 


THREE-POINTED 


PRINCE  OF  WALES 


BLACK  SWAN 


BROADWAY 


California 


PERRY   &    COMPANY'S    CARBONIZED    STEEL    PENS. 


PER  GROSS. 


1001,  $0.50 

1057,  .50 

1065,  .75 

1067,  .75 

1069,  1.50 

1070,  .50 
1074,  1.00 


COMMERCIAL 


LADIES'  FALCON 


The 

Celebrated  "D" 


Turned-Up  Point 


OBLIQUE 


ATTORNEY 


RODND  WRITING 


These  pens  are  all  packed  in  illuminated  boxes,  containing 
i  gross,  and  will  be  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  price  named. 
A  complete  sample  card  will  be  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of 
20  cents. 

SOLE   AGENTS    FOR    U.   S. 

IVISON,  BLAKEMAN  &  COMPANY 

753    AND    755    BROADWAY,  NEW    YORK. 

63 


THE    PENS 
OF    THE    FUTURE 


In  Twelve  Distinct  Patterns 


THIS  NOVELTY  (PROTECTED  BY  LETTERS  PATENT)  EM- 
BODIES AN  IMPROVEMENT  WHICH  BIDS  FAIR  TO  MAKE 
PENS  MANUFACTURED  ON  THIS  PRINCIPLE  THE  WRITING 
INSTRUMENTS  OF  THE  FUTURE.  BY  A  PECULIAR  PROCESS 
THAT  PORTION  OF  THE  POINT  WHICH  COMES  IN  CONTACT 
WITH  THE  PAPER  IS  SHAPED  OUT  OF  THE  THICKNESS  OF 
THE  METAL  INTO  A  ROUNDED  FORM,  WHICH  ENABLES  THE 
WRITER  TO  GLIDE  OVER  THE  ROUGHEST  PAPER  WITH  EASE 
AND  RAPIDITY. 

SOLD   RETAIL   BY  ALL   STATIONERS. 

Wholesale— Perry  &  Co.,  L'd,  London. 

SOLE   AGENTS    FOR   UNITED    STATES, 

Ivison,  Blakeman  &  Company,  New  York 

64 


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